


In The Absence of Good Ideas

by InWater



Category: Ghost (Swedish Band)
Genre: Coping, Demonic Possession, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, Worldbuilding, headcanon heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 78,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InWater/pseuds/InWater
Summary: You spend another hour trying to find each other, to recognize each other. You drink a little too much, and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, that was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.What if there was another story?
Relationships: eventual Papa Emeritus II/Original Character, eventual papa emeritus ii/original male character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Same as it never was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. It's about time I started posting this thing, whatever it is, instead of just letting it sit around on my desktop. There's a good amount of completed chapters and the full plot is pretty much all drafted out, so I'll try to keep updates semi-regular. 
> 
> This is probably some of the most self indulgent, navel-gazy shit I've ever written. 
> 
> Chapter warnings: alcohol.

It had been yet another one of his brilliant, spur of the moment decisions. 

Like many of these decisions, it was brought about by a minor disagreement, and acted on as a way to exert some sort of control over the situation. 

Cirice stands barefoot in his bathroom, clippers in one hand and leaning his weight on the sink with the other. He stares in the mirror, eyes flitting around his reflection, unsure of what to focus on. His hair’s uneven over his left ear. The hair at the back of his neck is definitely not as clean as it should be. It’s a lot shaggier than he assumed it’d be too – probably from using the wrong guard. He finally breaks eye contact with himself when his phone buzzes for the fifth time since he got to work. 

Are you sure you don’t wanna come out? Just for a little while 

Maybe it’ll put you in a better mood :)

It’s only a few building over 

Babe hey 

:(

Cirice looks at the messages, then to the dark clumps of hair littering the tile, and finally back up to his own reflection. 

“Well, shit.” 

* * *

The messages that follow helpfully supply Cirice with directions and an address, but he finds the party easily enough on his own; really, all he had to do was get down to the ground floor and follow the dull beat of dance music coming from the adjacent building. The idea of too many people all gathering in one place is starting to make him a little irritable and itchy. Either that or there’s still some stray hairs stuck to him. He really should’ve put more effort into cleaning up his hack job instead of just grabbing his bag and coat and immediately heading out. 

Parties were business as usual, at least for this particular part of town. While not directly affiliated with the Church of Ghost, many hopeful acolytes tended to make good use of the cheap rent and short commute until it came time for their Confirmation, after which they’d be allowed to move to the church grounds proper just outside of the town limits. 

The Papa of Ardeaglais Gréng – known colloquially as the Green, or Second Cathedral, was rumored to be a little less than uptight when it came to enjoying life’s simpler pleasures. Which certainly was saying something, given Papa Emeritus Nihil’s long standing reputation. Not that Cirice himself had the privilege of attending any parties alongside the Papas themselves, seeing as those invites were reserved for those higher up in the food chain so to speak, but there were stories. And pictures. …And videos. 

Shouldering his way past a group of partygoers congregating in the open doorway, he has a good look around while waiting for his eyes to adjust to the “mood lighting”. It’s dim inside, the only light sources being strings of Christmas lights tacked to the ceiling and UV blacklight bars laid across the backs of several tables. Generic EDM bumps through a meager sound system, often peaking and causing glasses and picture frames to rattle and vibrate. 

This was a mistake. 

Cirice shakes himself out in an attempt to loosen up. 

Oh well. Here we go. 

“Hey!” He calls out when he sees a familiar flannel-clad figure in the distance, standing by a folding table covered with bottles of varying colors and contents.He doesn’t appear to hear him. Cirice starts shoving his way over. A girl that he vaguely recognizes (Madison? Madeline?) gives him a tight smile when Cirice waves awkwardly on approach.

Cirice reaches out and touches his target on the back of the shoulder, coming around to his side. 

“Hey! Vin. Hi.” 

Vincent grins, filling a plastic cup midway with something from a dark green bottle. He laughs when he speaks. 

“Hey, I was wondering when you’d show. You know, I was starting to feel a little bad leav—” 

Vincent turns and gives Cirice a smile, before stepping back to get a better look at him. He snorts like he’s trying and failing miserably to hold back a laugh. 

“What did you do to your hair?” 

Cirice chuckles a little back at him, unsure. He makes like he’s going to tuck his hair behind his ear, but there’s no hair to tuck.

“What?” 

Vincent runs a hand through Cirice’s hair, much shorter than he‘d seen it in years, ruffling it up even more. 

“Nothin’. Just... surprising. It looks cute.” 

Vincent laughs again and keeps scrubbing his hands through Cirice’s hair. He can feel his face go a little warm so he shrugs away to scour through the bottles - wine coolers, whiskey, beer, vodka, all fresh from the corner store and cheap as trash, save for a rather expensive looking wine bottle or two. Pilfered from the cathedral kitchens by junior clergy members, no doubt. Cirice grabs a handful of those little airplane shot bottles and shoves them in the pocket of his coat. In case of emergency. 

“Well, you said I was due for a haircut right? Did you forget?” 

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.” 

Vincent takes his drink, along with a can of beer, and nods over toward an empty space on a couch in the front room. Expecting the rest to follow, he weaves his way through the crowd with ease. Hanging onto Vincent’s shoulder like a lifeline, Cirice uses him as a buffer against other people too busy in their own conversations to move out of the way until they’re safe in the less densely populated sitting area. 

Squeezing himself in against the arm rest, Cirice brings his legs up, uncaring of his shoes digging into the upholstery. Vincent flops down next to him after setting his red plastic cup on the coffee table. He stretches out, one arm going across the back of the couch behind Cirice’s head and the other offering him the can. It’s so cold that little ice crystals cling to the aluminum, melting on contact. With a mumble of thanks, he cracks the can open, downing half of it. One of Vincent's friends, the one who he’d seen around but never really spoken to, gives him a look. 

“You anxious or something?” Vincent asks, resting a hand on the back of his neck. “Take it easy.”

“Trying,” Cirice grouses and wipes his mouth on the side of his hand. “Little out of my element here.”

Anxious. The nerve. Of course he’s anxious. Cirice hasn’t _willingly_ attended a party since they got together. While he did enjoy people and being around them quite a bit, he needed time to warm up to them, whereas Vincent seemed to thrive off of getting in as much socializing as humanly possible. Even after so many years, Cirice can’t fully wrap his head around it. Doesn’t he get tired? 

From there, the conversation sort of fades in and out of focus, Cirice instead distracting himself from the warm energy buzzing in his skull by digging through his ratty green messenger bag and rifling through what he affectionately refers to as his “garbage”. Scrap papers, writing utensils, a well worn sketchbook, a crumpled box of cigarettes – many of which are either snapped in two or half-smoked – and two lighters. One broken, and one functional.

(“Okay but the broken one has a really cool skull on it,” he’d say defensively when asked.)

At first he goes for the cigarettes, but pauses with his hand hovering over the box. After thinking on it for a second, he grabs the sketchbook and a pen instead. He never knows what to do with his hands. Might as well be something constructive. Besides, it’s pretty rude to smoke in somebody’s living room without asking, and he really doesn’t wanna go outside and possibly have to deal with strangers making weather talk.

Vincent messes with a longish tuft of hair behind Cirice’s ear, causing him to squirm away.

“Missed a spot.” 

“I can clean it up later. Can’t exactly see back there.” 

“Shoulda waited, I’d have done it for you.” 

Cirice shrugs. At first he just drags the pen around on a blank page for a little while until shapes start to appear, going back in and refining them as he notices them. Vincent continues messing with the choppy edges at Cirice’s hairline, a playful smile tugging on his lips. 

“You still mad I said your hair made you look like a tiny Joey Ramone?” 

His hand stops mid-penstroke. 

“... No. Just wanted to do it myself before I chickened out.”

Pulling him in by the back of his neck, Vincent hums _uh-huh_ and plants a kiss on the side of his head, then takes a sip of his own drink. Drawing lazy spirals from the center of the page out, Cirice crosses out everything he’d drawn so far in the process. He mentally runs through every different talking point he can think of in case the flow of conversation comes his way. Reaching into his pocket, he cracks open and downs one of the mini bottles, tossing it onto the table once it’s empty. He resists the urge to attempt to fix what’s left of his hair.

“What are you making?” 

He jumps, startling Vincent in turn, and looks up at the same woman from earlier, the one who gave him the look, leaning partway over the armrest. 

“Umm. I’m just– nothing. Keeping busy, you know.” 

He shifts around, pen at a standstill now that he knows someone is watching. 

“Oh! Neat!” She says with all the chipperness of a polite party semi-stranger trying to make conversation. Cirice tries to place where he’s seen her but her hair is falling around her face like a dark red curtain. Theatrical. Though she brushes it behind her ear and he’s able to actually see her face, it doesn’t help. He knows for sure now that he’s met her but still can’t find a name. He isn’t brave enough to hazard a guess. 

Luckily, she asks first. 

“Sorry, what’s your name again?” 

He’s still sort of squinting at her from the corner of his eye, tapping little dots in the shape of a triangle on the paper. 

“Uh, Cirice.” 

“Oh, right! I saw you at the thing!” 

He assumes she means the initial consecration ritual a few months prior. She waves her hands in a circular motion while she thinks, as if it would make the words come faster. 

“She was a saint, right? Or something?”

He feels a little relieved. Between Vincent and the rest of his friends, he’d grown accustomed to nobody knowing or caring much about the church aside from what kind of fun it offered. 

“Priestess. I… don’t think we do saints? My parents got real into the whole thing when they were younger. They always wanted me to want to go study at the Third Cathedral instead, I guess.” 

He rubs his hands together and pins them between his knees. Although it does get easier the more he speaks, his nerves start to creep back up on him. Vincent, on the other hand, seems pleased that he’s occupied with something other than doodling and leaves to greet someone he seems to know with a quiet promise to be right back. Cirice nods, but screams internally the moment he feels the couch shift and he feels the distinct lack of body warmth boxing him in. 

“Well, it’s good your family is cool with it! My brother joined the church a few years back actually, but he’s at the First Cathedral. Not my style, personally. Too quiet.” 

“Y-yeah! I get it. But it’s good to already know people involved. And to go where’s comfortable.” He pauses. “Um. My boyfriend thought about joining with me, but I guess it isn’t his style either.” 

He looks back down at his hands, fingers lacing and unlacing. He’s changed his mind; his skin feels sticky and gross, and he wants to step outside very, very badly. The living room is a little too hot but there’s a strange chill now that Vincent is no longer pressed against his side. The woman seems to pick up on his growing discomfort and makes some space so she isn’t leaning over his shoulder. 

“Oh, that’s a shame! Well, they let _spouses_ live on the grounds even if they’re not actually part of the church, right? Think that extends to partners?” 

Right. There was still some paperwork to fill out and phone calls to make regarding the whole living situation thing. The Sister at the office assured him that the process was only that clunky and difficult because of the lack of interest from unaffiliated partners in living onsite. He’d honestly been trying not to think too hard about it. Slowly he moves his hand from where it’s pinned back to his sketchbook, fiddling with the corner of the page. 

“He’s staying with me in my quarters until we figure something out. Even if you’re not married, the exception extends to steady relationships, but I don’t… Nevermind,” he cuts the sentence short and chuckles awkwardly, trying to ignore the look he gets in turn. Good job. Uncomfortable oversharing averted, kind of. He tries to tuck his hair behind his ear again. 

When the woman gives him an odd sideways look, he clears his throat. 

“Sorry, I just realized that I don’t know your name either.” 

“Oh! I’m Madelene!” 

She laughs, not unkindly. He gets the feeling that they’re both feeling awkward, especially after the previous topic. 

Yet another cluster of people enters the living room and Madelene waves them over excitedly before Cirice can respond properly. Yeah, that’s way too many people to risk saying anything else. He ducks his head and fills in a gap between the lines with some crosshatching, trying not to listen in on whatever this new group is talking about. Instead of butting in, he focuses on seeing how quick he could finish his previously forgotten drink, along with the extra unopened one left behind on the table. 

When he looks up, Madelene’s friends have gotten themselves situated on the surrounding seats and the carpet, chatting animatedly. The edges of conversation start to feel soft, the air warming his lungs as he inhales. There we go. Much better. 

Flipping over to a clean page — or as clean as it could be with all the ink bleeding through, god damn cheap paper — he gets to work scratching out a crude drawing of the person sitting diagonally from him. Or rather, the way his arm and wrist are bent over the armrest of the chair with his fingers extended. It reminds Cirice of that painting, the really famous one whose name he can never get exactly right. For added flavor, he draws in a little cartoon devil reclining opposite him and passing over a beer.

Madelene’s friend takes notice and does a pose reminiscent of The Thinker for the next time Cirice looks up to reference his model, earning not quite a laugh, but the weird look that comes from trying to suppress a smile. 

When Madelene’s friend laughs, it’s more of a hyena cackle. Cirice snorts hard through his nose and ducks his head to hide his face. He pretends that the heat rising to his face is from the alcohol. Before he can even attempt to play it off cool, Vincent ambles back over, seeming to have noticed Madelene and her entourage, noticeably more tipsy than before if the dopey grin on his face was anything to go by. He takes his spot against Cirice’s side again and checks out the sketchbook in his lap. 

Vincent gives him a little good natured scoff and takes the pen out of his hand, smiling as he draws something in the upper corner, returning the pen once he’s finished. Turning the sketchbook to get a better look reveals it to be a duck peeking in from the edge of the page. It’s wearing a party hat and holding a miniature beer bottle in its wing. Next to its head is a little speech bubble that says “party party”.

“You can do that at home. C’mon and _mingle_ or something.” 

It’s either the two beers and several shots he’s downed tonight, or a weird sense of guilt that’s making him nauseous. He starts drawing an outline around the duck to act as a shield, separating it from the absent minded doodling.

“I am _mingling_.”

“God.” Vincent leans his head over the backrest of the couch. “I wish you’d lighten up a little. Have some fun, socialize maybe.” 

Cirice stops the movement of the pen, watching a little spot of ink bleed and feather out on the paper. 

“I thought I was.” 

Sighing, Vincent puts his hands over his face and drags them down, letting them fall and land on his knees. He mumbles something nonsensical and trails off, a complete nonresponse. After taking a second to glare at the stupid duck, Cirice flips to yet another new page. He quickly and messily scribbles a girl playing the violin on stage, with her hair as the red theater curtain. 

Somehow it’s a little less fun than before. Cirice clicks his tongue against his teeth.

“Fine. Cmon.” 

Leaving the pen inside his sketchbook and shoving it back in the bag, Cirice hauls himself off the couch. He spins to face Vincent, adjusting the shoulder strap of his bag and opening another mini bottle from his coat pocket. He holds it out after drinking half. Vincent stands and moves in close, laughing as he brushes away the offering to go for the front of Cirice’s coat instead. 

Each time Vincent steps forward, Cirice takes one step back until they’re lost in the sea of people in the space between the kitchen and the living room. Only then does Cirice lean into his space and hook his chin over Vincent’s shoulder, arms around his middle. Maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but so long as nobody pays too much attention to him, the surrounding mass of bodies feels safe and warm. Comforting. There’s a weird sense of comfort to be taken from being a nobody in a crowd.

The body currently supporting his full weight isn’t so bad either.

Vincent gets a few inches between them with a firm hand on Cirice’s chest, mostly to get him standing straight.

He goes to finish off the mini bottle only for Vincent to take him by the wrist and tip the bottle into his own mouth. It’s then plucked from his weak grasp and tossed to the ground. The song changes to something bassy and of a moderate tempo, obviously a crowd pleaser based off of the hoots and cheers from those much farther into their drinks than he is. 

Cirice gives him a suspicious look when he catches his eye.

“What?”

“Nothin’. Dance with me.”

“I don’t dance.”

Vincent snorts. Always contrarian. 

“Sure you don’t.” 

Admittedly, he didn’t hate _all_ of the music as much as he thought he would. It’s loud enough in the epicenter that they have to frequently lean in close and shout to be heard over the music and background chatter. Cirice wrinkles his nose in distaste and shoves Vincent playfully when he makes his fourth “if you don’t dance then what do you call that” joke of the night. The sound system was just a set of stereo speakers hooked up to someone’s laptop with their library on shuffle, but it had its bright spots. Some songs they knew, most they didn’t, but all of them made for a pretty good time nonetheless. Except for when an incredibly drunk girl with Bettie bangs in a black halter top shrieks at the first few notes of something that’s a touch too electronic and dancey. Vincent makes a face. He leans in. 

“Do you wanna get out of here?” 

“Please God,” Cirice shouts back. 

Vincent grabs his sleeve, then his hand, and pulls them the rest of the way through the crowd. They wind up out on the side deck of the apartment, where a few others have gathered with their drinks and cigarettes and a few slightly more interesting party favors brought from home. Too bad there isn’t a balcony. Cirice fogoes any sense of formality and sits right down in the middle of the cement patio, rummaging for his cigarettes and (functional) lighter. Vincent plops down beside him, knocking Cirice’s knee with his own. 

“Gonna share that?” 

“You don’t smoke.”

“I heard you don’t dance, either.”

Cirice takes a deep pull and passes it over. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he breaks the seal on his last mini bottle once he’s confident Vincent isn’t going to hack his lungs out and die. Inside was a little too warm for his comfort, but now with the sweat cooling on his skin, he shivers and takes a drink. 

Laying back to look at the night sky, he realizes that there’s too much light pollution to see very many stars. He always heard that small, faraway towns were better for stargazing. All that’s there to look at is an endless expanse of blue-black. Vincent looks down at him where he’s laying on the concrete. He reclines next to Cirice, though still looming above on his elbow. 

“When you said _get out of here_ , I thought you meant _go home_.” He pauses to take a drag, staring up at the velvety black sky. “But this is fine, too.”

Sometimes fine can be good enough. 

  
  



	2. Make it easy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the stupidest argument of all time + another oc.
> 
> I’m without a laptop right now but I still wanted to get this chapter up. Sorry about any possible weird formatting. I’ll edit it later.

The following few days go by in a blur. Though his sleep schedule usually sends him to bed sometime around 4am, he’s lucky that being a new initiate and not yet a full member of the clergy means all he has to do is show up to a gathering or two every week. This means he typically only rolls out of bed in the afternoon, frequently with Vincent splayed out all over the bed and drooling onto Cirice’s collarbone. It’s only annoying some of the time, and far preferable to the mornings where he wakes up to find the other side of the bed already cold.

On the colder mornings, with the apartment empty, the only clue as to Vincent’s whereabouts would be a note on the fridge’s magnetic whiteboard or a missed text on Cirice’s phone. It was usually a trip to see some friend or another, or sometimes to go out asking about jobs in the city. Cirice purses his lips. Was Vincent really that unenthused about the whole scenario? The thought worried Cirice deeply. It _was_ a plan that they came up with together, after all. 

They have only been living in their complex for a few months, and with their combined savings they wouldn’t even have to find jobs until it was time to make the transition to living full time on the church grounds. By that time, Cirice would be finished with whatever training he was assigned and on his way to being a genuine member of the clergy. 

It was easier to grow accustomed to attending frequent rituals and services than he thought it’d be - the big ones were only saved for special occasions. Instead, the gatherings reserved for newer members were far more barebones and seemed to only be about helping them find their place in the community, whether that be working normal day jobs within and around the cathedral grounds as a Sibling, becoming a member of the clergy and working in the offices, or even going through the arduous process of becoming a ghoul. 

Communal living didn't seem all that bad, though he’d reserve making any judgements until they were actually settled in. He’d liken it to being similar to the apartments they were currently staying at — of which several tenants were also tentative initiates themselves. Sometimes people got a little rowdy when he was trying to sleep, but it’s hard to hold it against them when he’s the one staying in bed well past reasonable hours. Still, it’s nice. He gets out a bit more frequently than he did back home, awkwardly navigates his way through small talk on the paths winding through the city and little almost-town surrounding the cathedral. He attributes it to the amount of strangers with at least one common interest. Usually he found himself looking forward to attending the meetings, no matter how boring they really were, excitedly gathering his things so he could get going. 

Coat, bag... what else? Papers? Was he supposed to bring those pamphlets that were handed out last week? He stands there staring at them deliberating on whether it would be dumber to bring them for no reason or forget them and have it turn out that he needed them after all. Whatever. They get shoved into the pocket of his oversized coat anyway, just in case. 

Wait, shit– phone. 

Cirice starts upending the bedroom in the search for his phone, tossing pillows and blankets aside and patting down the pockets of every discarded pair of jeans on the bedroom floor. Then he checks the bowl on the table next to the bedroom door, strategically placed specifically for him to leave his stuff in when he changed clothes. No luck. 

“Hey, I have to run to the bus stop soon. Have you seen my phone?” 

Milling around their tiny kitchen with a bowl of cereal is Vincent, clad in flannel sleep pants and an old band tee. The radio is playing the morning news softly from the corner by the couch. It’s a little surprising to see him not even dressed yet. 

Vincent sulks. 

“Can’t you just stay home today?” 

“What? No! These meetings are like, really important,” he says, already pulling cushions away from the couch and digging his hand between them. Nothing but crumbs and a few pennies. He makes a mental note to vacuum later. “Vin, can you help me look? Or call it or something?” 

Vincent sweeps his eyes over the kitchen counter, shoving aside piles of junk mail and grocery coupons, looking more than a little despondent. They haven’t been spending that much time together since they moved and Cirice began spending more and more time away from home. In the past they’d spent nearly every waking moment together, practically joined at the hip. Cirice chews the inside of his cheek. 

“You can come, too, you know. To a meeting. It’s just to gauge interest and sort everyone out, you don’t even really have to—“ 

“Nah,” he says through a mouthful of cereal. “Sorry. But maybe next time?” 

Cirice’s shoulder’s slump and he lets out an aggravated sigh, rubbing the palms of his hands over his eyes and dragging them down his cheeks.

“You said “next time” the last four times, dude. If _you_ don’t want to go at all you can just say so, but _I_ can’t just not show up!” 

Cirice gets up from where he’s still knelt by the couch and takes a closer look at the kitchen counter. There really is too much shit up here. Every lost item in the world is probably under those penny savers. 

Crossing in front of him, Vincent puts the now empty bowl into the sink. He leans forward, slightly hunched with his hands on either side of the counter’s edge to support his frame. 

“Is sitting around in a stuffy church talking about demons really all you wanna do?”

Even ignoring the gross oversimplification, Cirice has a hard time coming up with a response. They talked about this extensively. They worked hard to come to a mutual agreement. Cirice hadn’t even bothered looking at nearby apartments until the both of them were absolutely positive of the decision. He ends up sputtering a few times while his brain works to catch up with his feelings. 

“We moved here specifically for the church.”

The leaky faucet and the tapping of Vincent’s nails on the laminate countertop are the only sounds in the room for a long moment. 

“ _You_ were the one who wanted to move here,” he says. Cirice doesn't miss the accusatory tone.

“...What.” 

It comes out like a flat statement. The heat in his face is still there, but he can feel a cold, anxious sweat already prickling at his hairline. He stands up a little straighter, metaphorical teeth a little sharper, but still wrings his hands in the hem of his coat. 

“You heard what I said. This is what _you_ wanted, because it’s always about what _you_ want.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You had exactly as much to say in the matter as I did.” 

“I wanted to support you! I just expected that the least you could do is humor me every once in a while.”

“Support me,” Cirice echoes. And then after a beat, tilts his head in confusion. “Humor you? _Once in a while?_ ” 

Cirice throws his arms out to his sides, aggravated and incredulous. 

“Vincent, you’ve been dragging me to some lameass houseparty every Saturday since we got here! And what happened to our supposed mutual agreement? You were all in for this before we got here.” 

Vincent doesn’t respond so Cirice pushes a little more. 

“If you changed your mind, that’s fine. We can work something out. But you at least have to tell me about it so I know what’s going on.”

“Oh yeah, going out for a couple hours on the weekend and then you running off to sit around in a church all day. That’s a hell of a social life.” 

“Hey, don’t ignore m—” 

“You’re always having some crisis because you never talk to anyone!”

“I talk to people all the time!”

“ _Not strangers._ God Cirice, when was the last time you even made a friend that wasn’t me?” 

Dumbfounded, Cirice stares at him for a long moment. Almost immediately, he can feel his face warming and he knows it’s mottled with pink all the way to his ears. Shoulders folding in, arms crossing over one another - making himself small, contrary with the sudden frustrated yelling. He doesn’t even know how to respond to that. It’s been a couple years, at least. Friends are… hard. Always have been. It feels like every time he starts getting somewhere, things just. Stop. He knows it, tries to own it and play it off, but he’s still taken aback by Vincent bringing up such a sore spot. 

“I... I don’t know. I talk to Madelene still sometimes, when I see her, and Scott, from the office, and...” 

He grips the lapels of his coat even tighter. The zipper digs into the palm of his hand.

“You know what I mean. Someone who says hi in the hallways or asks about the weather every once in a while _isn’t_ your friend.” 

Cirice feels his face go even redder, until his eyes go fuzzy, signaling the onset of tears. He bites harder on the inside of his cheek to stop anything stupid from coming out. Something in his mouth crunches. 

“Did you really think coming here would fix anything? You’re—” 

“Don’t tell me what I am.” 

Making eyes at the door, he shifts his weight from foot to foot, anxious to get to where he’s supposed to be already. He could survive the day without his phone. He just had to get out of here first. Not for the first time, he hopes the bus is late. Hopefully they don’t lock the doors after meetings start; the clergy doesn’t seem that strict for members who don’t even have roles yet, but... 

“Don’t get so defensive. Look, I’m just worried about you. I want you to be able to go out and have fun. Live a little. It isn’t good for you to keep to yourself so much. Alright?” 

With his arms outstretched, Vincent comes in for a hug. Cirice narrows his eyes at him. Takes a step back. 

“Are you gonna be mad at me now?” 

“Uh, yeah. You’re kind of being an asshole,” he says. 

Vincent drops his arms. Clicks his tongue. 

“Fine.” 

Cirice doesn’t miss the eye roll when Vincent turns away to walk toward the couch and flop down onto the cushions, already digging around for the remote to their shitty Goodwill tv. They needed to have a talk, that much is obvious, but now seems like not the best time. It’d probably be much less of a headache to leave it alone, give them both time to cool off and think before pushing the subject any further. Hovering in the hallway for a few seconds more, Cirice stares at him before clearing his throat and heading out. Once his hand makes contact with the doorknob, Vincent calls out to him. 

“Found your phone! It was in the couch.” 

He holds it out in front of him, making Cirice cross the living room to take it from his hand and slip it into his back pocket. Vincent smiles at him. 

“Bye, babe,” Vincent chirps, sounding genuine and cheerful, voice already devoid of its previous tone. 

If he was being honest, the idea of ignoring Vincent until he came back home sounded pretty appealing. But no, that isn’t how anything gets done. 

“See you.” 

Locking the door behind him, he pulls out his phone to double check the bus schedule. He’s a little behind on leaving the apartment; arguments will do that. Shoving the whole ordeal from his mind, he hurries off to the nearest bus stop, thanking whichever deity he’s supposed to be thanking when it rolls up 14 minutes past schedule.

The ride itself is uneventful, as usual. The bus doesn’t go directly to the cathedral, but to a stop just outside the town limits, leaving Cirice to walk the remaining quarter mile. It gave him the perfect opportunity to steel his nerves each time he had to approach the imposing silhouette of the cathedral, spires and towers peeking out ominously through the tree line. 

The pathways leading around the little community are winding and flashier than strictly necessary, but not so much as to be confusing. The stones of the footpaths are decorative and form interesting little mosaic patterns, sometimes branching off to narrower dirt paths leading further out, or even splitting in two and rejoining to form rings around trees. In no time at all, he makes it safely to the building where today’s meeting will take place fairly easily. 

Good thing, too. Being easily turned around and overwhelmed would have been a detriment had he decided to attend Ardeaglais Mov, presided over by the Third and youngest Emeritus brother.

At least that’s what he’d gathered from overhearing a visiting Sibling at his first legitimate ritual, in which they were meant to choose where to relocate to.

Each Papa had their own tastes reflected in the architecture and styles at their respective cathedrals. They _were_ built for them after all. From the stories he’d heard, the Third’s tastes may have been a little much. It could also have been an exaggeration; people seemed prone to both oversimplifying and dramatizing when it came to the Papas. Either options sound equally as likely now that he thought about it. 

It’s sort of funny, walking through the buildings. When he first got here he’d expected everything to be a lot more... well, he wasn't sure what he was expecting. Probably torn somewhere between “sterile and minimalist” and “claustrophobic mid-century Gothic” but the reality was somewhere in between. Utilitarian, not overly decorated but also not too sparse. Still, he wrinkles his nose at some of Papa’s... aesthetic choices — usually when it comes to the artwork, and especially when it comes to the sheer amount of hidden imagery throughout. At his last meeting, he found himself severely distracted by what seemed to be a semi-abstract painting of someone having sex with some sort of demonic figure, hanging right behind the Sibling in charge.

More and more prospective members of the congregation dot the hallways, sticking together in groups of two or three and talking amongst themselves quietly as he walks deeper into the building. Cirice ducks inside the regular meeting room, thankful that he didn’t get lost in the hallways again, and stands off to the left of the gradually filling room. Occasionally he’d make eye contact with someone he vaguely recognized and give them a nod or a casual wave, but otherwise doesn’t really bother to approach anyone. He anxiously shifts his weight around remembering what he and Vincent talked about before he left. 

In an attempt to reassure himself, he reasons that forcing it would just make him seem pushy and awkward. You can’t rush being friends, right? Of course not. But maybe if he tried to be a little nicer, less standoffish... 

He snaps out of his thoughts at the feeling of someone nudging him with their elbow. 

“Are you staring at the weird dick painting again?” 

“ _You saw that?_ ” 

His eyes widen, probably comically so, judging by the laugh it earns. Standing next to him is a man a bit older than he is, with close cropped brown hair, thick glasses and a soft, round face. Cirice shrugs off the feeling of familiarity. When you’re in a group where everybody is new and expected to sit through the same career day seminars week after week, everyone starts to become vaguely familiar. It’s kind of comforting, and would be even more so if the relationship aspect weren’t so difficult to navigate. It’s impossible to tell what is and isn’t overly friendly at this stage. Too early to tell if people’re just being nice out of first day of school jitters or if they’d really want to stick around. 

“I think the whole point is to notice it. Or maybe to normalize it? I dunno. I don’t really get art,” the man laughs. 

Cirice smiles.

“Yeah, they’re uh. They’re big on that kinda thing here.” 

“I guess. I’m Stevie, by the way,” he says, putting his hand out. 

Cirice looks at it for a split second, whispering “ _oh, right_ ” before going in for the handshake. A half apology leaves his mouth, he holds the handshake for a little too long and fumbles the introduction before finally getting his name out. 

“Like the—“ 

“Like the priestess, yeah,” he hurriedly finishes, only to regret it a second later. No use getting short with people when they’re just trying to be nice. “Sorry, didn't mean to cut you off.” 

“No problem?” 

Stevie says it like a question and Cirice winces a little. 

“I’m assuming you get that a lot,” Stevie continues as if nothing happened. Most likely out of politeness than anything else. 

The room slowly fills in around them, the stern looking minister clicking around on a laptop at the podium and her three assisting Siblings flitting around the room checking in each attendee individually on clipboards. 

“N-no, I just— I got excited. My parents were _really_ into the gospel and well, other people don’t usually recognize it! Or they didn’t until I came here,” Cirice tilts his head as he speaks, first left, then right, and trails off. It’s hard not to get a little overenthusiastic, finding somebody with this particular common interest. It isn’t like the concept of devil worship was very highly regarded in greater society. 

“That must have been interesting growing up. My family isn’t involved at all. They’re kinda pissed at me right now, actually. _Real traditional._ ”

The last part is added through gritted teeth for emphasis and Cirice finds himself nodding and humming in acknowledgment.

“I think that’s how it is with a lot of people here. Anyone who isn’t born into it usually ends up coming around cause of, uh, ideological differences.” He isn’t sure how to word it any other way without making assumptions. “Also cause it’s kinda fun.” 

That gets a laugh out of Stevie and Cirice checks off the conversation as officially “saved”, if slightly stilted. It’s fine, he mentally repeats to himself like a mantra. Practice makes perfect. 

“So if you kinda grew up hearing about this stuff, does that mean I can ask you a bunch of stupid questions? Cause like hell I’m gonna make an ass out of myself in front of all these people.” 

Cirice isn’t exactly confident that he’s the guy to go to for all the answers – his parents were secular, rarely attending rituals with the rest of the flock and only living on cathedral grounds for a short period before moving back to the city — but the opportunity is too tempting to pass up. It isn’t like he has anyone else to listen to all the trivia he’s gathered through the years anyway. 

“The stupider the better,” is the only way he can think to verbalize his feelings on the matter. And then adds after a beat, a little quieter, “I have so many pamphlets.” 

Stevie seems satisfied and nods, pausing the conversation to cross his name off of an offered clipboard when one of the Siblings makes it to their corner of the room. The clipboard is passed off to Cirice, who searches the list of names for his own and scratches it off before handing it back. The Sibling looks it over, ensuring everybody who’s supposed to be present is so, and returns to the minister at the front of the room where the other two Siblings are already waiting. 

The procedure seems somewhat pointless, reminding Cirice far too much of afterschool programs and library sign-in sheets to be comfortable. But he supposes they’d be signing their names on a scroll in blood instead of checking them off of an Office Depot clipboard if it were anything to worry about. From his understanding, the scroll part doesn’t come until much later.

The questions Stevie pelts him with aren’t actually stupid, to Cirice’s minor disappointment. It’s more that they’re questions that might seem obvious to those who’ve already spent years studying. Admittedly, he doesn’t know the answer to a lot of them himself, most of his answers ranging from “no” to “I don’t know”, but he can see the appeal of asking around before going to the higher-ups first. 

Before Cirice can respond to Stevie’s question about where ghouls come from with anything more than a shrug, the minister takes her place at the front of the room, commanding attention without so much as speaking. She clears her throat and directs attention to, of all things, a PowerPoint presentation being projected on the lowered cloth screen behind her. Thankfully, it covers up any distracting artwork. Cirice lets his mind wander a little while she explains the different branches of service one could devote themselves to. Goosebumps form on his arms when she gets to the topic of ghouls. 

The way he understands it, the path to _becoming_ a ghoul is a far different one than that of the ghouls summoned straight from Hell, involving what’s called a Descension. Strict training and study, countless rites taken and ceremonies performed, ultimately leading up to the final transformative ritual... the idea was so deeply unsettling that it made his skin crawl. No, the most suitable possible option definitely looked to be becoming a member of the clergy. It’s not like those living on the church grounds had to worry about their living wage or anything, but a rigid schedule and administrative duties would at the very least give him something to occupy his time and get him out of the apartment. The paycheck was just a sweet bonus. 

He’s so busy thinking about which field of training to go into that he totally misses the slides explaining what that the training even entails. It isn’t a big loss. Clerical work is a more professional way of saying answering phones and handling papers and doing whatever grunt work no one else wants to do around a stuffy office, right? Exactly the kind of thing he already did back home. Easy!

The feeling of his phone buzzing in his pocket snaps him out of his thoughts. 

Sorry for being a dick this morning

Cirice types a single letter - “K” - and hovers his thumb over the send button. Instead of responding, he shoves the phone back into his coat pocket with all the folded up church pamphlets and turns his full attention back to the presentation. 

* * *

  
  


After the meeting wraps up and the group disperses, Cirice decides to have a quick look around the area. It doesn’t do much to ease the anxiety that’d been churning his stomach for the better part of the day, but it does help him get a more solid mental map. Better to know the feel of the place where he’d soon be living and working full time than get lost on the first day of work, or something equally embarrassing. 

Though he doesn’t have much to compare it to, he supposes that the abbey is laid out much like any other town; there’s a small schoolhouse, a library, several living blocks, a greenhouse, gardens, a cemetery, and more administrative buildings than he can keep track of. Of course, they all pale in comparison to the cathedral itself, all dark wood, stone and wrought iron, with simple arched windows on every plane save for one gigantic, circular stained glass piece in varying shades of green placed front and center. Instead of blocking the walkway, Cirice steps off the path to stand in the shadow of a large tree and take in the view. The more he stares at the stained glass window, the more elements he notices. There’s a Grucifix in the center, of course, but there’s something behind it. Hands? Yes, two clawed hands presenting the Grucifix, with several smaller panels depicting scenes from the gospel framing them, though he’s still too far away for it all to be entirely legible. He wonders where that window leads. 

His mind unwillingly drifts back to his argument with Vincent from that morning. Clerical work. It does sound pretty… underwhelming, uprooting and moving to a place like this, only to wind up filing papers and answering phones. He knew he wasn’t destined for anything too great and dramatic, and even explained to Vincent that things were more calm and rural than he’d probably expect. It wasn’t going to be like those ritual videos online _all_ the time. 

He shakes his head. It was worth it. If it meant getting to be a part of a community of supportive and like-minded people, then it was definitely worth it. And besides, someone has to do the boring shit behind the scenes, right? Unconsciously, he wraps his arms around himself and tells himself that it’s just from the chill in the air. 

Cirice is so busy thinking and staring up at the cathedral that he doesn’t even notice the three Siblings a little ways off, chatting amongst each other for a minute or two until one finally makes their way over to him. 

“Hello!” She waves a hand in his line of vision, the combination of sudden movement and her squeaky voice making him jump. “Do you need help finding something?” 

The surprise of a stranger suddenly approaching him makes it difficult to process the question right away. He can feel his face flush while she patiently stands by. There’s a staff ID pinned to the front of her dress, the same as on the Siblings he’d seen at the presentation, and a shiny green badge with an acronym that he doesn’t recognize on it.

“No, sorry, I’m only looking around. I just got out of one of those orientation things, so…” He trails off, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the building. The sister smiles, her wild and curly hair bouncing as she nods. 

“Okay, great! It’s super easy to get lost in here if you don’t know your way around,” she laughs. “Um… Do you need a ride home?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, I thought I asked them to start telling people about that,” she says quietly before perking right back up. “Well, anyway! It’s just me and a few others, but the church has a ride service now, for anyone who needs help going home and getting to the city and stuff!”

“...Uh- _huh_.”

“We were approved by Papa and everything,” she adds hastily when Cirice gives her a suspicious look. 

Checking the bus schedule on his phone, Cirice thinks of the stretches of walking from here to the stop, and from the next stop to the apartment. Usually, he’d welcome the isolation that the trip provided, but… screw it. Might as well. The bus wouldn’t even be coming for another 45 minutes anyway. 

“Yeah, sure. I need a ride.” 

She smiles even wider, her eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Alright! Follow me!” 

With that, she turns and scampers off in the direction of a small building with full sized windows at its front. Cirice watches her go for a brief moment, debating on whether he should follow through or not. 

_‘Ride service? Was that really necessary?_ ’

It makes sense, he supposes. It didn’t look like too many people around here had cars of their own. She seems nice, but should he be trusting some stranger to get him home?

With a few long strides, he easily catches up but decides to hang back, head swimming with questions for the entirety of the walk. 

Only once they get closer does Cirice notice that the signs and flyers posted in the windows and on the bulletin board out front look like they were hand drawn and then photocopied. Looking at the drawings, he starts to feel strangely guilty about it. 

_‘Did she make all of these herself? It is just her and a few others after all. Sounds like they’re doing their best.’_

“Hey,” the woman starts, looking up at Cirice staring into space. “You coming?” 

Snapping out of his thoughts, he finds himself standing on the front step while the woman holds the door open for him.

“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling the door open the rest of the way and following her inside. 


	3. Right Back Where We Started From

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said previously that I was shooting for an update every Sunday, since I have a backlog of chapters and little interludes, and can usually knock out 1 or 2 chapters in a sitting. I'm gonna be changing that to every other Sunday instead. Completely forgot school was a thing. Whoops. 
> 
> I'm importing this directly from docs, so let me know if formatting is a little funny.

As Cirice tails the woman through the building, she finally pauses in her nonstop listing of the various perks afforded to Siblings. He assumes it’s to actually take a breath. When she stops walking as well, Cirice has to back up, suddenly self conscious of how closely he was following. 

“I totally forgot! My name is Mayrose! I’m with the community resource program, but you probably already figured that much out.”

She spins on her heel to stick out a hand, fingertips thudding against Cirice’s sternum in the process. Her smile tightens in embarrassment but she makes no move to pull back. Cirice looks down and after a beat, pushes her hand back by the thumb until it’s at a comfortable distance to give her a proper handshake. 

After a brief (and uninterrupted) introduction, Mayrose smiles wide and continues animatedly explaining the multitude of programs and services and seasonal events, somehow never faltering even as she scribbles something down on the back of a bright red flyer and hands it to him. Squinting down at the writing, he realizes that it’s a phone number and extension code. 

“Next time you need a ride, just call that number, okay? Or you can come here, that’s fine too. Whatever’s comfortable!”

Cirice nods, but says nothing.

Truthfully, he appreciated how helpful Mayrose was being, but her enthusiasm was starting to wear on him after only a few minutes. Was everyone else in the volunteer program this chipper? Must be exhausting. The paper goes straight into his bag, along with a couple more colorful flyers and pamphlets he snatches off of a nearby table. He doesn’t feel like reading them now, but it would be a shame if there was something interesting going on soon with no one to pay attention to it. 

Mayrose pulls out a chair and gestures for him to take a seat before taking one herself behind a desk that, judging by the multitude of pink sticky notes and planters shaped like little animals, Cirice assumes is hers. She’s already got the phone to her ear and is halfway through punching in a number. Cirice drops his bag by his shoes and slumps forward in the chair with his fingers steepled between his knees. He listens to Mayrose humming quietly for a few moments. It sounds familiar. Eyes closed and leaning forward even more, he tries to get a closer listen only to jump when her high, upbeat voice picks up again. She gives the location, a confirmation, and a polite thank you before hanging up. 

“That’s all you have to do! It should be a few minutes; the driver has to get ready. Can I get you anything?”

“N-no, I’m alright. Thanks,” Cirice mutters. 

Surprisingly, she doesn’t pursue any further conversation and takes to typing away at the desktop computer, humming all the while. He doesn’t recognize the song this time, so he busies himself with various daydreams and scenarios relating to shady phone calls and taking rides from strangers. To anyone else, it’d probably look like an incredibly stupid choice to blindly trust some stranger to get him home. But he was already _at_ the creepy Satanic village far from civilization and crawling with all sorts of weirdos and demons. This might as well happen. 

At the sound of approaching footsteps, Cirice and Mayrose both look over to see a tall, well dressed man clad in the same black pants and button down shirt he’d seen on most other Siblings around the grounds. The main difference, of course, being the pointed black mask covering his face. The mask is familiar by now but it’s still a little off putting to look at, as intended. 

The man buttons his sleeves at the wrists and smooths his hands down the front of his shirt to straighten out any wrinkles, standing tall and proud, putting his hands behind his back. The pinnacle of professionalism and neatness, like he stepped out of the welcome brochure. Mayrose purses her lips. 

“Were you asleep again?” 

The man’s shoulders sag. 

“No! No, I wasn’t _sleeping_ ,” he says defensively. Seemingly remembering himself, he straightens again. “Where are we going?” 

Cirice raises his hand in a halfhearted wave.

“Uh, I need to–” 

“Lemme guess, the apartments over on Chaucer, right?” 

The man shoots him a finger gun, eyes turning up with an unseen smile. Cirice furrows his eyebrows, but says nothing. 

“Lotta people live over there while they get sorted out. I kinda think Papa pays off the landlord too… But you didn’t hear that from me!” he adds quickly. 

It sounds reasonable enough. Cirice recalls seeing quite a few familiar faces around the apartment and swearing that he can hear hymns coming from somebody’s stereo at one point or another. Evidently taking notice of his hesitation, Mayrose speaks up. 

“Is it okay if _he_ takes you home?” The man visibly bristles at the question, bringing a hand up to lightly touch the edge of his mask. “You’re still new, so… If you’re not comfortable, I’d be happy to ride along–” 

“No,” Cirice says quickly, before any further arrangements can be made. “I’m familiar with the whole… thing,” he finishes, helpfully waving a hand over his face to illustrate his meaning. Standing, Cirice shoulders his bag and makes his way over to the driver, turning to nod at Mayrose.

“Thanks for your help.”

Seeming pleased, she waves them off and goes back to her work with a small, satisfied smile. Once they’re a safe enough distance away, the tall man releases a deep breath he’d probably been holding for a while. Silently, Cirice finds himself agreeing with the sentiment. 

After a short walk to a side lot, the man leads Cirice to a perfectly normal, nondescript dark grey car. Not exactly what he expected. Then again, he's never quite sure _what_ to expect around here.

“You can sit in the front, if you want. Whatever,” the man says, and unlocks it with a button on his keychain. 

While normally he’d be more than happy to make himself scarce in the backseat, Cirice decides to take him up on the offer. Usually being in any unfamiliar car, even a taxi, was incredibly uncomfortable, but the slight mess and collection of charms and lanyards on the rearview made it easier. Like being in a friend’s car. If he looked at the passenger side window from a certain angle, he could even see streaks in the shape of letters. Remnants from messages written in dust or condensation. So much for that first appearance.

_‘Thought you’d be scarier.’_

He turns his attention back to the tall man at the sound of a yawn. 

“Hope Mayrose didn’t freak you out,” he laughs. “She’s a little…” 

He widens his eyes and makes a vague gesture with his hands, a strange vibrating sound emanating from under the mask. Cirice snorts but shakes his head. 

“She’s a lot,” he says. 

“Sure is,” the man agrees, shrugging one shouder. “She comes on strong but she’s just trying to be nice.” 

After buckling himself in, the man fiddles with the radio and waits for Cirice to get situated before slowly rolling out of the lot and down a narrow road that took them to the main street. The silence weighs heavily in the air, but the masked man seems oblivious. It takes a few tries to get himself started, but eventually Cirice gets a few words out.

“Is it… safe for you to drive with that mask on?” 

He had half expected him to remove it for the drive, but then again, total anonymity is the whole reason for wearing it in the first place. Taking it off in front of strangers would render it kind of pointless.

“I can see just fine.”

Cirice looks up from his feet and over to the driver just in time to see the man put his own eyes back on the road. 

“Oh. I didn't mean to imply anything, or– ” 

The man laughs. It’s warm and genuine, albeit a little muffled. 

“You’re okay! I get it,” he says, tapping on the temple of his mask. “The way the eyes are shaped, it doesn’t mess with my peripheral any more than wearing glasses would.” 

Cirice hums and nods his head slowly, watching as the man taps some more on the steering wheel to the beat of the radio with ungloved hands. Normal human hands. Not ghoul hands. (Or not yet, at least.) 

This time, the silence is less stifling when the conversation dies. The drive is comfortable, and with a slight sense of familiarity, even though they’d only exchanged a handful of words. He might even say he’s enjoying it. Every so often, the man makes a comment about their surroundings – this building is new, that bush wasn’t there before, hey look, a dog! For the most part, Cirice continues to hum or nod in response to what he’s saying, not having much of his own commentary to add.

_‘That won’t do. If he’s making the effort, I might as well try, too.’_

“How long have you been with the church?” He asks, looking directly at the man instead of at his reflection in the windshield. 

Though he can’t see it, the smile is evident in his voice. 

“A few years now. Just got my mask last month.” 

He’s barely able to contain his excitement, grip tightening on the steering wheel and his eyes scrunching at the corners. He even dances around in his seat a tiny bit. Letting his head fall back against the car seat headrest, Cirice smiles too.

“Oh, congratulations. So, is this like, your job for real, or what? Mayrose said it was all volunteer based.” He picks at the sleeves of his coat while the other man speaks. 

“Well, kind of?” He laughs and itches his jaw underneath where the mask’s mouth area juts out. “I wanna get into the whole chauffeuring thing. For Papa and his ghouls, you know? I… This is a little embarrassing, but ever since I saw those videos of his ghouls online, and saw them at my first ritual, it was all I could think about. I’m not very musical or studious or anything, so trying to _join_ their inner circle is out of the question, but I still really want to just… be helpful to them.”

A long red thread unravels from the hem, which is then tied up in a little knot and shoved in his pocket. Cirice smiles, more to himself than anything.

“That’s not embarrassing.”

The man makes a pleased noise, somewhere between a laugh and another hum. The car turns at the intersection; the trees and fences passing by in a blur are looking more familiar now. They’re getting close to the apartments. Shame.

“What about you? Do you have any plans?”

Once again, Cirice chews on the inside of his lip. He's going to have to break that habit soon if he doesn't wanna end up all scar tissue. 

“Just work in the offices, maybe. That’s what I did back home, too.”

The man nods in understanding, even when Cirice finishes off with a lame _iunno_ sound. 

“Well, whatever you end up doing, good luck with it. They usually give you a while to feel things out before making any big commitments around here, so don’t stress if you change your mind.” 

“That’s… yeah. Thanks.”

Cirice hopes that his words don't come off as insincere. Every choice he’s made recently – the move, the apartment, the _lease_ to the apartment, all with another person, no less – has seemed so dire, so final. To know that he could easily change his mind and go into a different field lifted a weight from his shoulders that he didn't even realize was there. 

But instead of voicing all of that and dumping a bunch of emotions on a stranger, he just flashes a half smile and hopes that he understands when the man looks at him from the corner of his eye once again. 

The man points ahead and indicates toward the front gate to the apartment complex, but doesn’t turn into the driveway. 

“Here good? Um, I don’t know the gate code, so... ” 

Cirice gathers up his bag and makes sure nothing rolled out onto the floor, checking his coat for his phone, wallet, keys. 

“Yeah, outside is fine. I’m just right there, in the front building. If you drove in, you’d have to turn around anyway,” he mumbles, suddenly unsure of himself. This was always awkward. Cirice wasn’t sure how likely he’d be to run into this guy again, given the size of the congregation, but he also couldn’t confidently tell whether he was being friend-nice or this-is-my-job nice. Probably not friend-nice. On his way out, Cirice wishes him a good rest of his day and a safe drive back to the church grounds. He slams the door and turns. 

“Thanks for the ride,” Cirice hurriedly adds on before he can forget and kick himself for it later. 

“Yeah, no problem! And,” leaning closer to the open passenger window, the man puts his hand out. “I’d give you my name but I don’t really have one. I’ll see you around, okay?” 

Always touching hands with these people. What’s up with that? Awkwardly, Cirice leans in through the open passenger window and shakes his hand. Maybe friend-nice? 

“For sure. See you.” 

Making his way to the smaller gate that opens to a footpath through the complex, cirice notes that the car only pulls off after he closes the gate behind him. He smiles a little to himself as he makes his way to the staircase leading up to his and Vincent’s apartment, keeping his eyes down at his feet. 

When he lets himself into the apartment, he can clearly tell Vincent is in a mood. He’s dressed, either having already gone out or still preparing to do so, but instead of greeting him like he normally would, he’s stood by the sliding glass door that leads to their balcony. 

“Hey, whose car was that?” he asks immediately before Cirice can even get a greeting of his own out. 

“Somebody I met at the church,” he says easily, tossing his bag aside and shrugging out of his coat. 

Their apartment is literally _right there_ , facing the street, with a perfect view of the front of their complex. He knows good and goddamn well that Vincent would be able to both see and hear him get out of some strange car and lean into the window to do who knows what. _Stupid_. Cirice sighs heavily when Vincent comes over to him, doing his best not to roll his eyes at what he knows is coming when he turns to face him. Not even a second at home and Vincent’s sour attitude is already seeping into his own. 

“Friend of yours? How come I don't know them?”

Cirice inhales through his teeth. 

“I don’t know _your_ friends,” he snaps. “But no. We aren't _friends_. The church has a ride service, and that just so happened to be the driver I got.” 

“You’re sure?”

“ _Yes_ , Vincent. Swear.” 

He nods, but clicks his tongue and sucks in a sharp inhale. At that, Cirice crosses his arms defensively, already exhausted. 

“You sound like you don’t believe me. Why’s that?”

Slowly but surely, he can feel his pulse picking up the pace, his fingers already starting to shake where they’re dug into his upper arms. 

Vincent purses his lips as if he were thinking. 

“I dunno, Cirice. Not answering my texts, home late, weird car, my boyfriend leaning into the window of said car,” he ticks off each point on his fingers. “Convenient ride service?” He adds on, exasperated. 

Cirice squints.

“You really think I’d lie to you like that?” 

It’s all he can think to ask. Or rather, out of all the thoughts jumbling around in his head, it’s the least inflammatory thing he can think to ask. Chewing on the inside of his cheek while he waits for his answer, there's a soft crunch and a bloom of copper as his teeth connect when Vincent raises his eyebrows at him, tilting his head as if to say “ _you said it, not me_ ”.

“It’s a little suspicious, alright? So hey, maybe don’t bite my head off for not believing that some stranger just decided to drive you home for no reason.”

Vincent is definitely getting a little louder than necessary, and Cirice knows that it’s going to just keep going. He can either match it, or sit there and take it. 

“Ride! Ser-vice!” He snaps, clapping his hands on each syllable for emphasis. 

Cirice backs up and unlaces his shoes, tossing each one down _not aggressively_ , but definitely not as carefully as he should. Fuck what Vincent thinks of what is frankly a childish display, but he does feel a little remorseful for possibly disturbing their downstairs neighbor after he does it. He wonders if it would be more annoying to apologize for it, should he see them anytime soon. Hopefully they weren’t even home.

“You want me to prove it?” Cirice asks. “Cause I can prove it!”

Before Vincent says anything to aggravate him further, he kneels down and digs through his bag, grabbing several papers at a time and slamming them down as he hunts for the obnoxious neon flyer. He finds himself actually feeling pretty glad for Mayrose’s forwardness. Not just for showing him how to call a ride in the first place, but also because he’d never have thought to get the number down himself. 

“Look, right here. You want me to call it?” 

“Cirice–”

He’s cut off before he gets any farther than that. Cirice knows that tone. That’s a warning tone. He doesn’t really care. 

“Nope! Nuh-uh! Already calling!” 

Vincent moves to grab the phone away from Cirice, who pushes him back with a hand to the chest and makes his way into the living room to sit on their couch. He hits the speakerphone icon and gives Vincent a pleasant smile when Mayrose picks up. 

“Hello! This is the Ardeaglais Gréng Community Resource and Outreach Center! How can I direct your call this evening?”

God, he’s so glad to hear that loud, squeaky voice. 

“Hi, Mayrose?” 

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“Yeah, hey, it’s me, from earlier. Just wanted to thank you again and let you know I got home alright.” 

“Oh, Cirice! Right!” Cirice smiles at Vincent again, who crosses his arms and leans back against the door frame. “Well, good, I’m glad! Thanks for letting me know.” 

“Tell the driver I said thanks when he gets back, too.” 

“You don’t have to thank us. It’s kind of our job to make things easier,” she laughs.

“I know, I just really, _really_ appreciate the help. That’s all. I’ll let you go now.”

He turns off speakerphone as they finish saying their polite goodbyes and ends the call, locking his phone and standing from his spot on the couch. With a tight smile and wide eyes, Cirice raises his hands and an overexaggerated shrug. 

“Would ya look at that,” he says, barely able to keep his voice steady. To avoid Vincent’s gaze, he moves past him to put the flyer back in his bag for safe keeping. He was never one for confrontation. Truthfully, he’d begun to shake and sweat at his hairline the second Vincent had started getting loud. 

On one hand, he’s glad he stood up for himself, but on the other… Guilt starts to coil in his chest after having put Mayrose on the spot like that, even if she didn’t even know it. When he turns to finally speak directly to Vincent, he tries not to let his exhaustion show in his face.

“Something you wanna say to me?” He asks quietly. 

“...I’m sorry,” Vincent says. It sort of sounds like he means it, too. Cirice fights back the urge to bring up the fact that he already said that earlier. Instead, he takes a breath and steps back.

Picking at it has never helped. That’s what he says to himself when he tongues at the little wounds and sore spots inside his mouth, too. The more you mess with it, the more it’ll hurt. 

“What’s up with you? Ever since we moved, you’ve been… Weird,” he finishes lamely, not quite knowing how to explain. They’d had ups and downs, sure, but Vincent had _hardly ever_ raised his voice or accused him of anything when they were still back home. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cirice thinks it has something to do with the close proximity to people they knew – parents, coworkers, old roommates. Can’t get away with much under someone else’s roof, after all. 

Before he can get much further into his thoughts, Vincent rubs his fingertips against his forehead and sighs. 

“I do get lonely, you know,” Vincent finally answers. “I get worried. I’m just not used to not having you around all the time.” 

It’s in such a tired, honest voice that Cirice already finds himself feeling bad. He’s right. They used to spend every waking moment together, save for Cirice’s part-time job in the city, doing everything from going on quiet drives to explore whatever hole in the wall secondhand store they found, to going out to meet with friends at countless parties and clubs, to hiding themselves away to watch movie after shitty movie together in bed. 

“I know. But I’m not some kind of mind reader, alright? As much as I wish I was.” Rather than go to his boyfriend, Cirice wraps his arms around himself, keeping a good few feet of distance. “You don’t get to yell at me for it. You need to talk to me.” 

Sighing, he looks down to where his papers are still scattered around his feet. He’d be a liar if he said he didn’t feel a little ashamed of raising his own voice and tossing things around. When Vincent doesn’t respond immediately, he tries again. 

“Look, it’s still kind of early. And there aren’t any meetings for the rest of the week. You wanna do anything? Movies?” 

Cirice himself has to admit that the idea was extremely appealing. Things were stressful - drastic changes always were – and stilted, but deep down, he genuinely missed their time together. Subconsciously, he rubs a hand over his chest where he thinks he feels somewhat of a dull ache. Still no answer. 

“We could even go out if you wanted? Call up some people from back home, see if anything’s going on?” 

The urge to smooth everything over and return to normalcy, however temporary of a fix it may be, is quick to overpower Cirice’s discomfort with the idea of doing anything particularly draining. The faster he gets over it and ignores the problem, the faster things can get better. Maybe if he pretends hard enough, it would actually somehow work. _‘Pushover.’_

Vincent gives him a small smile. 

“I’ll look into it.” He nods his head over to the couch, where his laptop is plugged in to charge. “Movies? Your turn to pick.” 

Cirice rolls his eyes, tightening the hug he has around himself with his hands tucked into his elbows. Of course that’s what he was waiting for. 

“Sure. Fine.” 

They end up flopped onto the couch for the next three hours, the awkward tension only somewhat broken up by Cirice constantly interrupting with trivia and amateur film analyses, with the occasional flat joke. 

“You’ve seen this before?”

“A million times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may say to yourself, “wow this guy really wrote Vincent to be a predictable asshole, I don’t believe this for a second. Why’s Cirice so dumb?” And to that, I say, I Don’t Know. Hindsight is 20/20. 


	4. Redundant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: there’s a bit of an uncomfortable scene toward the end here (not that this fic’s been very comfortable so far). Vince ignores some pretty obvious “leave me alone” signals, but it’s nothing explicit or drastic. Still. Tread lightly, take care of yourself, etc. etc. 
> 
> _____________________
> 
> Once is a mistake, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern. But four times… well…

As hesitant as he is to admit it, spending a few days off with Vincent doing nothing is nice. Like a break he didn’t know he needed. It’s almost like they’re back home, hanging around or going for walks around the neighborhood. It took a try or two, but they soon fell back into their old, comfortable routine of long walks, alone together and talking about nothing, then coming home to find something schlocky to watch on tv. 

Cirice settles onto the couch and Vincent settles onto him while he flips through all 15 of their channels, finally landing on a heavily censored sci-fi film from the 80’s. Now that things were _normal_ and _calm_ and _good_ again, it’s deceptively easy to ignore any previous arguments or missteps. Like nothing even happened. Quietly, Cirice worries to himself about how quickly that could change when the week is up and he has to go out for another orientation meeting at the cathedral, or even when it comes time to live fulltime on the church grounds with a real job and real outside responsibilities. Trying to push those thoughts away, Cirice instead wraps his arms around Vincent’s shoulders and buries his face in his hair. A filter of sandy blonde obscures his view of the tv. He closes his eyes and Vincent hums at the feeling of a kiss pressed to the side of his head.

Vincent’s phone buzzes in his pocket. Shifting around until he can reach his phone, he answers in a casual tone and sits up, though not enough to remove himself completely. The sound and movement rouses Cirice into opening his eyes, but he’s immediately distracted by the overacting of the lead actor. After a few more words are exchanged, Vincent nudges him.

“Hey.” 

No answer. Vincent shakes him gently by the shoulder.

“ _Cirice._ ”

“Whuh?” Cirice finally manages to tear his eyes away from the impressively awful practical effects on screen to see Vincent propping himself up on the arm not used to hold his phone. 

“You feel like going to hang out sometime soon?” 

The immediate sinking feeling he gets in the pit of his stomach must be visible on his face or in his body language somewhere, judging by how quickly Vincent goes from looking semi-hopeful to annoyed. 

“Don’t look at me like that. It’s just to catch up with a couple people from back home. Sound good?” 

Unable to meet Vincent’s gaze, Cirice does little more than make a low sound in his throat and let his eyes wander back over to the tv screen. 

“I… I don’t know,” he finally says. Vincent’s never made much of an effort to make him feel welcome or included past just inviting him or bringing him along – many of Vincent’s friends don’t even know his name, despite being introduced several times. Some didn’t even realize they were dating until they finally moved in together. Truthfully, Cirice liked it better that way, even if he would never admit it. Less expectations that way; he’d never have to worry about making a bad impression if he was never truly present to begin with.

“Cirice, come on,” he says, sitting up fully and running a hand through his hair. “It’s just a party – your _rituals_ are bigger than this is. I try for you, you gotta start trying for me.”

The words feel like ice in his chest. It hurts, and the cold chill is quickly replaced with anger, but he quickly shoves away the urge to bite back. Anyway, it’s true, isn’t it? Vincent moved, picked up all his shit and left his friends and everything behind, to move to some stuffy little church village that he had no particular interest in. Even though he knew Cirice was set on rejoining the congregation from the day they got together, it couldn’t have been easy to actually _do_. The very least he can do is not put up too much of a fight when it came to going out. Just because Cirice is fine by himself, that doesn’t mean it’s fair to hold his boyfriend to the same standard and expect him to not want to see his friends ever again. 

“Fine,” he says. Yet again, his eyes drift back to the tv just in time to see a large animatronic spider attacking some poor woman. Keeping himself so sequestered isn’t working in his favor, so he might as well keep trying. “When is it?”

Vincent smiles, immediately alleviating some of the leftover tightness in Cirice’s chest. If he could kick his own ass, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“Tuesday.”

Perfect. A full day off. No meetings or appointments to save him. 

“Yeah, that’s… okay. Sounds fun.”

  
  


They fill the days leading up to the party with more movies and trash tv, occasionally venturing to the kitchen for snacks or going outside for a walk and a quick lunch at a nearby cafe. 

All too soon, they’re waiting for their ride at the front gate of the apartment complex. His multiple attempts at delaying the inevitable hadn’t worked; if Vincent notices Cirice still dragging his feet a little, he doesn’t say anything. Hands shaking, it takes him a few tries to get his third cigarette of the night lit.

“Don’t be so nervous! You know these people,” Vincent tells him as he rubs soothing little circles between his shoulder blades. 

_‘That’s only one of my problems’,_ he thinks bitterly. 

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t settle his nerves. He’s already dizzy and a bit nauseous from too much nicotine and whatever else they put in these things. He considers just tossing the cigarette since he isn’t really smoking it, but that’d be a waste. At the very least, watching the paper slowly burn down toward the filter gives him something else to focus on. If it isn’t finished by the time their ride comes for them, it can go back in the pack with the rest of it’s partially smoked siblings.

“I just don’t know what to do with myself at these kinds of things, I guess,” he finally mumbles. 

Vincent stops fiddling with his phone and turns. He pockets his phone and walks over to where Cirice is busy sulking. 

“Hey, look at me.” 

Fingers brush against his neck, prompting him to look Vincent in the face. 

“It’s going to be fine. _You’re_ going to be fine.” 

They don’t have much time to exchange further words before a car pulls up to the curb, blinding them both with its headlights in the process. Cirice crushes out the ember of his cigarette with his heel, crouching to pick up the remains while Vincent and his friend behind the wheel exchange a few very enthusiastic greetings. When he stands, Vincent gently shakes Cirice around a little by the shoulder, smiling. 

“‘Sides, I doubt anyone’s gonna remember anything for long. Just think of it like practice!”

The idea of treating anything like practice doesn’t quite sit well with him – it isn’t _wrong,_ exactly, but it doesn’t feel good either. Like they’re an experiment or something. Now probably isn’t the best time to push it. Silently, Cirice drops the cigarette into the pack and slides into the backseat of the car after Vincent. 

* * *

At the party, Cirice can’t help but feel antsy. Itchy, almost, like his skin doesn’t fit him right. His thoughts are racing and too jumbled to really keep up with what’s being said around him past brief introductions and reintroductions (and, in some cases, re-reintroductions). Instead of trying to figure out when it’s okay to jump in, he tosses back a drink or two and lets others direct the flow of conversation. Sufficiently malleable and shapeless, Cirice wanders aimlessly around the house while Vincent catches up – who’s working where now, who’s seeing who, did you hear this, did you know that. A group of guys are in the kitchen gathered around a beer pong table; this seems like as good a place to stop as any. Cirice hops up onto the kitchen counter and sits back against the cabinet, idly kicking his legs and watching the show. 

A guy whose face Cirice can’t place taps his arm with the back of his hand. 

“Don’t look so freaked out, man.” 

Judging by the slight slur and looseness in his movements, he’s a few drinks in himself. Definitely not trying to hassle him, just a little overly friendly. That, he can deal with. 

“Trying,” Cirice mumbles, but attempts a shaky smile anyway, He lets his head fall back against the kitchen cabinet behind him as if it were suddenly too heavy to support.

The guy nods, the motion a little more pronounced than necessary. 

“It’s not so bad,” he says. “Just gotta learn to keep yourself together, y’know? Nothing wrong with sitting one out every once in a while.”

Before Cirice can formulate a response, the guy seems to get distracted when somebody from the beer pong table lets out a celebratory shout, laughing at the display. Cirice fidgets with his coat sleeves, not wanting to pull the guy away from his next drunken conversation with someone passing through the kitchen. The two drinks he’s already had have definitely eased him into a more social mood, but everything is still a little too rigid for his liking. Or not rigid enough? Something about the atmosphere puts him off in a way he can’t seem to articulate, simultaneously out of control but also having its own set of social rules that he can never quite seem to figure out no matter how often he experiences it. Maybe getting involved didn’t work in his favor, but at the very least, he can enjoy being an outside observer. He passes the next five to forty-five minutes imagining himself as a bodiless camera, free floating and unobtrusive, recording information for later use.

No matter how detached he originally felt, the sheer overenthusiasm around the table is contagious. Despite how stupid and over the top it all is, Cirice finds it difficult not to smile, even when each team gets a little too loud – though with all the moving around, he is sort of confused as to who exactly is on which team. It probably doesn’t matter when the end goal is just to get drunk. Speaking of… 

“There you are! You ran off, I was looking for ya.”

Vincent leans on the counter beside him, sliding a can of beer over his way with two of his friends in tow. Nadia and... Ryan, he’s pretty sure, though Ryan’s hair was green the last time he saw him, not orange. 

“I didn’t run off! I’ve been right here the whole time,” Cirice says, tapping a nail on the unpopped tab out of habit. 

He leans around Vincent, offering a little half-wave at the other two. Ryan returns the favor. Nadia does not. He pops the can open, a little bit of foam dripping over the lip and onto his fingers. When he sits back, he keeps his eyes down at the drink in his hand. The condensation from the side seeps into the fabric of his coat sleeves where they cover his palms. With all the yelling and side conversations happening, it’s getting even harder to stay present, only able to respond when someone speaks over the noise and directly to him. It’s never anything too in-depth, at least not with Vincent’s friends. Truthfully, he’s a little glad that he’s not being involved. He has no fucking clue what any of them are talking about when it comes to anything deeper than questions about school or work or dating, and they make no real effort to keep him in the loop when he asks. The can is emptied and set aside in record time. The familiar hazy feeling finally starts to set in and he sighs, quietly thanking the Old One for being such a lightweight. Makes things easier.

Hopping off the counter, he digs through the fridge in search of another beer as easily as if he were in his own home. _‘Fuck formalities.’_ There aren’t any cold ones inside, but he does find a cardboard six pack container with a few bottles left next to it. He uses the bottom hem of his coat to twist off the cap, pockets it, and comes right back to his spot on the counter to make himself comfortable. 

“You okay?” Vincent asks him after a minute or two of staring half-lidded into space. It’s in a neutral enough tone, but it still feels a little bothersome to hear. Like the answer was clear as day and Vincent should know it already. 

“Fine! Nervous, little drunk, you know,” Cirice is quick to respond, snapping out of his daze. 

“Is that why you’re always so quiet?” Nadia laughs, though not in an unkind way. 

Cirice shrugs.

“Aww, you should come out more often! We’re not that scary, I promise.”

Cirice contemplates clearing a few things up but decides it isn’t the time or place to throw out the old “ _it’s not you, it’s me”_ line. Trying to explain all the ins and outs of his social hangups feels like too much for a casual interaction. Still, she seems… nice. Maybe it’s just his drunk brain at work, but people here are actually _really_ nice. No one seems to care if he stumbles on a word or three. They talk freely and don’t worry about speaking out of turn or ruining a conversation. That might be because everybody else is already about three times as drunk as he is, give or take, but maybe it really wasn’t as bad as he was making it out to be. Vincent pats Cirice on the back a few times and then puts his hand around the nape of his neck, laughing. 

“Yeah, right. Good luck putting up with this guy for very long.” 

Cirice’s body goes stiff, hackles already raised. When he finally speaks, it’s through gritted teeth.

“Excuse me?” 

Vincent doesn’t remove his hand, but he does give him a quizzical look. As if he’s the one who’s out of line here.

“Babe, I’m kidding. It was a joke.”

“Okay,” he mumbles. He keeps distant tabs on the conversation but has a death grip on his lukewarm beer the entire time. 

The comment simmers in his mind for a minute, maybe two, until all at once his frustration surges and threatens to boil over completely. 

_‘What the_ _fuck_ _did that mean? Good luck putting up with me? Who even says that? In what universe is that okay?’_

Hopping off of the counter yet again, Cirice leaves his drink behind and walks off into what he believes to be the direction of the bathroom. Vincent begrudgingly makes to follow, but backs off when he gets practically hissed at.

“Am I not allowed to take a piss by myself now?”

He raises both hands in surrender and then crosses his arms, overtly shooting a look to his friends. Cirice doesn’t even bother trying to pick apart what that look might mean or to check for the friends for their reactions. He does not slam the bathroom door, as much as he wants to, but it is shut and locked firmly. 

Typical of an irresponsible and single 20-something year old man hosting a house party, the bathroom is kind of a disaster. Cirice just sits on the side of the bathtub for a while to catch a break, not exactly keen on the idea of using anything. He’s more comfortable in the smaller room anyway, cleanliness issues aside. Snapping at someone in public would only make things worse later. Taking his phone out of his coat pocket, Cirice puts his head down onto his knees and wraps one of his arms around his legs. 

Not like there’s anything to look at in the first place. No missed messages to reply to, no voicemails, not even spam emails to delete. For a brief few seconds, he hovers over the contact for the ride service offered by the church, but decides against it. Taking a separate car home would only cause more problems, especially considering they still _lived together_. Instead, he opens his calendar app to check when his next meeting is. It’s a full day away, but the little green bubble on his calendar gives him an immense sense of relief. Cirice squeezes his eyes shut. 

  
  
  


“And what happens when you get tired? What happens when you get bored?”

“I won’t.” 

“Oh, Cirice, come on. We both know that’s a complete lie.”

Turning to face Vincent, he throws his arms to the sides, hands mimicking an explosion.

“Fine!” His voice is a little too loud for the quiet surroundings of the public park they had wandered through. “Maybe I _will_ get tired and bored! But... maybe that won’t be so bad,” he tries, phrasing it more like a question than was intended. Gradually, his resolve crumbles. Cirice crosses his arms, grabbing them at the elbows and hoping that it looks more like he’s bracing himself from the late afternoon chill than trying to make himself small.

“I could maybe just... learn to deal with it? I really like it here. It’s–”

“ _Nice_?” Vincent finishes, leaning into Cirice’s space and bumping their shoulders as they walk. He waits for Cirice to nod. “And what’re you gonna do when people start to notice that you aren’t?”

“God, shut the fuck _up_ already,” comes the snippy response, along with a squinty glare and mocking lip curl in Vincent's direction. 

Vincent raises his hands in mock surrender, face tightening as he tries to keep himself from smiling or laughing or both. 

“See what I mean?”

Cirice doesn’t respond, but he pulls his coat tighter around himself. The cheap synthetic fur lining the hood tickles his cheeks but it’s one of those easier to ignore annoyances. It’s… not incorrect. He’s fully aware that he has a bad habit of snapping at people for minor infractions; in the back of his head, he replays the memory of the time last spring when, without even thinking about it, he yelled at someone at the movies for talking and kicking his chair one too many times. Or all of his passive aggressive needling, and getting short with people who just do _not_ seem to _get it_ , whatever _it_ is. He doesn’t even want to think about being younger and stupider, picking fights in school and arguing with friends. Ashamed, his throat tightens, face warm enough that even his eyes feel it.

Their conversation continues much in the same vein – mostly one sided, save for the occasional retort or insult – even as they circle back around the outer perimeter of the park. Standing around at the sign out front, Cirice digs in his bag to fish out two mostly whole cigarettes. He lights both and hands one to Vincent without a second thought. The breeze picks up and Cirice debates starting another lap around. 

“If I was _really_ that bad, don’t you think _you’d_ have gotten sick of it?” 

“Hmm. Nah.” He pulls the cigarette from his lips and holds it aloft in one hand. He smiles wide at Cirice, letting the smoke drift out from between his teeth. “I like you just the way you are.”

The sentiment has never sounded so discouraging. Vincent drops the half smoked cigarette on the ground and starts in the direction of the apartment, leaving Cirice alone at the sign. His hands are numb. His eyes itch and burn but he tells himself it’s from the smoke. He stays out for another minute or two before finally crunching the ember under his shoe and sulks back to Vincent’s side. The unspoken _‘you're just as bad as me_ ’ hangs heavily between them. 

  
  
  


Startled, his eyes shoot open at an insistent knocking at the door. Cirice sighs and slowly unfolds himself from where he was doubled over on the edge of the tub. 

“Gimme a second!”

Another round of knocking. This time, more insistent. Who is he to deny some drunk party girl her bathroom mirror selfies? He huffs and stands, unlocking the door and cracking it open. 

Cirice narrows his one visible eye at Vincent, who has the nerve to look genuinely apologetic. What else is new? He opens the door a little further, but not enough for Vincent to step inside – just enough for him to see how hard Cirice is trying to encapsulate the phrase “fuck off” with just his face. 

“Cirice, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” 

“Well, it _did_.” His face flushes at how childish he sounds to his own ears. “You know how I feel about–” 

“I was only joking.”

Cirice bristles at being cut off, but says nothing. This isn’t the place. He doesn’t particularly care about what these people think of him, but he’d rather they have the full story before making any judgements. He’ll be damned if the situation gets twisted into “oversensitive hysteric yells at boyfriend in public”. He shudders at the thought.

“Well, I didn’t think it was very funny.” 

“Obviously so.” Pause. “Listen, I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll be more considerate in the future. Okay?” 

“... Uh-huh.” 

Really, the apology does nothing for him but worsen the frustration that’d been making his hands shake for the better part of ten minutes. “Sorry” is a pretty word and all, sure, but what use is saying it when you’re obviously just doing it so people stop being mad at you? It’s probably better to bring it up later. But he still has to go home with the guy, after all. At least for now.

But also… Vincent’s always had a problem with tone and putting his foot in his mouth. What if he really didn’t realize how it came off? Especially to someone whose moods operated on a hair trigger.

Cirice aggressively shoves that thought away to deal with later. Optimally while sober and in the relative safety of his home. While Cirice is busy not paying attention, Vincent gently pushes the door the rest of the way open. He lets Vincent’s arms encircle his shoulders but shies away from a kiss by turning his head, leaving Vincent to just press his lips to his jawline instead. He tsks at him. 

“Don’t be like that. Give me a kiss.” 

Vincent moves in. 

Cirice moves back. 

Vincent moves in again.

Cirice takes a half-step back, his lower back meeting the edge of the sink.

He remembers how grimy the bathroom is.

Good.

Staring blankly at him, he makes no further effort to move when Vincent presses his lips against his, hands on his upper arms and wandering to splay at his ribs. Careful to keep his face free of any expression, Cirice brushes away his hands. 

“Door’s open.” 

Vincent laughs like there’s some sort of joke to be found there and he returns to the party. Cirice watches him go. Out of the corner of his eye, Cirice thinks he sees something move. But it was just the mirror. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That was uncomfortable. 
> 
> Warnings for similar invasive behaviors in chapter 5. Feel free to tap out if you need to.


	5. Bait-and-switch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed the warning at the end of last chapter, here it is again.  
> Consent and boundary issues (nothing explicit), uncomfortable relationship stuff, all of that sort of thing. Some mentions of vomit.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Carrion-eating birds of prey will vomit to dispel any disturbing animal. They can propel their vomit up to 10 feet, or 3 meters. The high amount of acid in the vomit is strong enough to burn them as well.

In the days that follow, he’s more or less ignored. He wakes up, attends meetings, comes home, sneaking a drink or two throughout and largely avoiding most everyone at the cathedral. Home is no different. 

The sound of a cabinet snapping shut from the kitchen jolts him out of staring into the can of beer in his hands and back to awareness, the tv droning on in the background. If Vincent notices the flinch it earns, he doesn’t say anything. 

“...Are you angry with me?” 

Vincent looks up at him from over the kitchen island. Eyebrows raised, eyes wide. Picture of innocence. He looks to the side as if he were thinking it over, before slowly shaking his head. 

“No. Not at all. Why?”

The first night after the party, Cirice tried to talk things out with Vincent once they both sobered up and had time to think. Of course, he was having none of it. Vincent never once apologized, never once made any attempt to check in with him, but made sure to repeat that Cirice hadn’t done _anything_. That it wasn’t his fault. As if he ever asked. As if he was worried he did something wrong in the first place. But the constant reassurance was still enough to make him doubt himself. His hands curl into fists, nails biting little crescent indents into his palms. 

“Because you’ve been ignoring me, maybe. All week, you’ve just been stomping around, and slamming shit, and not fucking talking to me,” Cirice snaps. 

Looking thoughtful, Vincent steps in from the kitchen, taking a bite of his sandwich. 

“Thought you liked quiet?” He says through a mouthful. 

Asshole. He should’ve expected that he was gonna just play stupid about the whole thing. 

“Not like this. _God_ , Vincent,” Cirice leans forward in his seat, avoiding eye contact by resting his head on his knees. “Every time I ask you how you’re doing or what you've been up to or what you even _want_ , it's just “I dunno” “I don't care”, “whatever”.”

He turns his head to at least look in Vincent's general direction. All he does is take another bite of his sandwich, so Cirice takes the opportunity to keep going. Drive that wedge deeper. Liquid courage and all that.

“I don't like it! So forgive me for trying to fill in the–” 

“Come on, we’ve been together, what, three years? You never heard of a comfortable silence before?” 

Being cut off makes his blood run hot in his veins, even more so than the ridiculousness of the question. 

“It isn't fucking comfortable!” 

With a quiet _oh my god_ , Vincent rolls his eyes, his head tipping back to look anywhere but at Cirice. 

“So, one minute you want quiet, you wanna be alone, you don’t wanna do anything but stay inside all day,” Vincent says, gesturing to the left with one hand and then to the right with his sandwich as he continues. “And the next minute, it’s too quiet, you’re lonely, you want something from someone but only on your terms. I just don't understand you anymore.”

Anything that Cirice wanted to say dies immediately in his throat. How is he supposed to even respond to that? Coherently, at least – he wants nothing more than to just start screaming until his throat ruptures and then scream some more, but gets the funny feeling that it wouldn’t help. Shaking his head, Vincent goes back to his sandwich and retreats to the balcony, slamming the sliding glass door behind him. Pushing back the urge to get up and follow him outside, Cirice grabs a glass bottle from the freezer and curls up in his corner of the couch. Before he breaks the seal on it, he spends a few minutes turning it over in his hands and holding the chilled glass to his cheek. It doesn’t do much. The gnawing, fiery feeling is much deeper than that. At the very least, it helps take his mind off of things. 

The rest of the night is spent staring blankly ahead at whatever trashy talk show is on tv between drinks and tonguing at the little coppery patches on the inner walls of his mouth. Once or twice Cirice has to stop himself from reopening any partially healed areas with his teeth. Eventually Vincent will come back inside and pretend like nothing ever even happened, and Cirice will be expected to do the same unless he wants another repeat of the same tired old argument. Until that happens, he fantasizes about changing the locks while Vincent is out doing… whatever it is that he really does during the day. He can’t help the stupid little drunken laugh that the thought gives him. It’s only satisfying until he remembers that both their names are on the lease, and doing something so shitty would probably come back to bite him in the ass tenfold. Ignoring him right back seems like the most viable option.

Surely enough, life continues as normal, albeit with a couple more hangovers and the lingering feeling of wrongness. The feeling will dissipate eventually, it always does. Give it another week, maybe two, and everything will go right back to _normal_ and _calm_ and _good_. Emotionally and mentally checking out was far more appealing than trying to reason with himself or with Vincent. It still doesn’t stop him from desperately pushing for normalcy and balance ahead of schedule by continuously agreeing to hang out and party around with Vincent, and always forcefully shoving all of his worries and fears out of his mind by drinking just a _little_ too heavily. That Sunday night had been no different. 

Vincent invited him out, which he hadn’t done in what felt like ages, and Cirice forgot all about ignoring and hating him, agreeing immediately. Any excuse to spend a bit of leisure time with his own damn boyfriend, even at the expense of his own social comfort. Going out with your boyfriend is normal. Socializing and clubbing and binge drinking your twenties away is normal. And normal is better than whatever the fuck was happening at home all this time.

There’s a club near enough, probably a 45 minute drive, that's rumored to be frequented by the congregation and those adjacent. Normal people and prospective ghouls and clergy and more normal people. There’s even rumors that the club is either owned or funded by the church. He’s unsure if Vincent is aware of that fact; there’s no shortage of clubs and bars in this town, or the cities neighboring it. Why did it have to be this one? Was it by pure chance, or did Vincent purposefully make plans to go here? And for what, as a way to entice him out at the prospect of being with “his” people?

Was this supposed to be some sort of olive branch?

Cirice isn’t sure whether he should feel grateful or annoyed – both at Vincent in general, and at his own propensity for paranoia. 

As usual, they’re picked up out front in a beat up old silver Volvo sometime around 9pm by yet another of Vincent’s endless acquaintances. Cirice is quiet the entire ride over, preferring to keep his forehead against the window of the back seat, only stirring to answer questions when necessary or when he feels the nudge of a plastic water bottle against his shoulder. 

He sniffs the bottle and then tips it back, vodka burning his throat and chest the entire way down. Vincent and the woman in the front passenger seat laugh a little when Cirice groans and shakes out his head involuntarily at the aftertaste, much like a dog shaking away water after a bath. Somewhere in his mind, he knows he really shouldn’t, especially not after riding the line of “tipsy” for the better part of the week and with the incessant brain fog making it difficult to focus on sermons and meetings, but finds it hard to care at this point. He’s been told that he’s more fun and agreeable when he’s had a little, anyway. Who was he to argue? He hands the bottle back up to the woman, who gives him a cheers motion and upends it, finishing it off without so much as a wince while her boyfriend behind the wheel hoots at her. 

Somehow, Vincent manages to convince him to leave his usual lifeline items in the car – his bag with all his garbage in it and his baggy, faded coat – under the guise of it being too hot and crowded in a club for them to be of any use. He’s right about one of those, at least. 

The club itself is sort of filthy and rundown, at least from the outside. He’d expected better of a place supposedly owned-slash-funded by the Unholy Family. Baseless rumor or not, there’s no way they would want their name attached to a place like this, would they? No, he imagines they’d rather something classier, maybe, with less mysterious stains and less graffiti and chewed gum stuck on the walls. With Cirice trailing behind, the other three lead the way inside where they’re all carded and allowed entry into a short hallway of unlabeled doors and littered with miscellaneous debris. The floor is sticky with spilled drinks and whatever else, the overall grimy feeling being helped along by the energetic but muffled music and the red and pink lights that seem to be the only light source in the entire building. In lieu of another door, at the end of the hallway is a thick red curtain.

One by one, they push through the velvet curtain and find themselves in a huge square-shaped room with two tiers. The first is ground level and well populated by both large groups and individuals taking their drinks at tables made of metal and glass, with a short flight of metal stairs leading down to a sunken dance floor and another bar. Inside, it is several degrees hotter; no doubt from all the constantly moving bodies sardine packed into the building underneath the rows and rows of colored lights. He takes it back. All of it. This place has _Emeritus_ written all over it. Cirice already feels sticky under the uncomfortable blanket of humid air and they're not even that far in yet.

“Ooh, a live band!” 

The woman leans against the railing running the perimeter of the first tier. Sure enough, the club’s music for the night is supplied by a four piece band on a smallish stage spanning the far corner of the lower section. Grinning from ear to ear, she hops a little in her excitement.

“...Is that a saxophone?” 

Still hanging onto the railing, the woman leans back to look upside down at her boyfriend, her shaggy, bleached blonde bangs falling away from her eyes.

“ _Um, hello,_ they’re establishing mood?”

He flicks her forehead and she laughs, righting herself and heading down.

Trailing after her as she bounds down the stairs, he catches her hand in his. A quiet “yeah, but _saxophones_?” is barely audible over the noise.

Viewing the scene from above is overwhelming, but not uncomfortably so. The inside is kind of pretty, actually, if you look at it from a different perspective. So many people, all different and mostly unrelated, but still all moving and talking at once. Maybe he’s already drunk. He doesn't have much time to think further on it before Vincent hooks his arm around Cirice’s elbow and prompts him to follow along to where his acquaintances are already making themselves at home on the lower level.

A bartender in a black shirt bearing the same design as the neon sign out front makes their way over to their little group, chatting with the woman while she figures out what she wants. The pink and red ceiling lights rotate, shadows shifting just enough to be able to make out the bartender’s face more clearly. It’s comfortable enough if you could ignore the greasy, tacky feeling on the bar stools and countertop.

“What’s wrong? You look miserable,” the guy laughs, leaning over to get a look at Cirice. 

“He’s just a little tipsy,” Vincent answers for him.

“Aha. No pregaming for you next time then, huh?”

“Sure,” Cirice says. 

_‘Next time? Good luck with that.’_

They order drinks and Cirice follows the rest of the group shot for shot, trying to at least keep on the same wavelength. He has to admit it's fun for a while, to care a little less. People are smiling and laughing, uncaring of any fumbles or odd looks. Maybe he’s only tricking himself into thinking that it’s fun. The alcohol fuels whatever conversation there is that Cirice can chime in on. The music, the atmosphere, the strange decor on the walls. Masked figures and girls in veils catch Cirice’s eye every so often, but they seem to disappear from his field of vision or melt seamlessly back into the shadows almost immediately. He second guesses himself before he can get up and go search for any of them. Better not. The thought of speaking to anybody makes him feel nauseous. Better stick with the group. Stick with Vincent. 

The music suddenly sounds familiar. The band seems to be taking a brief detour, breaking up the repetitiveness of the previous songs by segwaying into a medley of sorts, though the beat of the main song is still present underneath the new layers. It takes a bit for the gears in Cirice’s brain to start turning again, but once he places the source, he’s _thrilled_. Now to just say it.

_‘Say it.’_

_‘Say it, say it, say it–’_

After a few moments of rehearsing in his head, Cirice clears his throat. 

“Hey, I think they’re playing that one song from Lost Highway.” 

It wasn’t intended for anyone in particular, more of an attempt at joining idle group chatter. A sharing of interests. That's how these things work, right? The other guy tilts his head as if trying to hear better.

“Huh. I mean, I never saw it, but… it’s a good song,” he trails off a little, laughing sheepishly.

“Fair enough. The movie’s real good too, kinda weird.”

“Oh yeah? I’m always down for some weird shit,” the guy says, sticking his tongue out and making a face, earning a light smack from his girlfriend next to him. He mouths “what?” and she rolls her eyes.

Cirice shrugs, smiles awkwardly but keeps his eyes to the table to let them continue their little back and forth. 

_‘Not too bad. Keep it up.’_

He lets the conversation roll on naturally, preferring to listen about all the popular movies they’ve heard about but never seen. It’s nice, being able to listen and jump in whenever. And not just because he’s one drunk idiot talking to a bunch of other drunk idiots, either. He doesn’t know these ones. He’ll have to get their names later. 

“Wasn’t this song in a movie or something?”

Cirice clenches his jaw so tightly and suddenly that it hurts – a bitter pain shoots from his molars through his jawbone. He looks up and over to Vincent from the corner of his eye and forces out a chuckle.

“Yeah, I just said that,” he says, trying hard to ignore the rising heat to his face. 

“Well, I didn’t hear you."

Cirice doesn’t respond. He orders another drink, something mixed with soda to mask the fact that this bar obviously waters down their alcohol. Still not watered down enough to stop him from getting where he wants to be; he’s only really determined where it matters least. No drive, no motivation or wants or needs, only coasting by in an alcohol-fueled stupor. A shitty Styrofoam cup is passed over to him on a napkin. He takes a long drink, nearly upending the cup, and does his best not to show his disgust at the taste of syrupy flat soda and watered down whiskey. The bartender gives him a knowing look. It's the _idea_ of it that bothers him. The Unholy Family would never water down their alcohol and serve it in a cheap, disposable cup.

...Or maybe they would? That _is_ pretty evil, after all. The thought makes him laugh. 

There’s a pressure on his leg and he looks down to see Vincent’s hand on his knee. It squeezes once, and then it’s gone. It makes his chest sort of hurt and his stomach tighten, a discomforting hollow sensation spreading through his body. He leans forward and folds his arms on the bar to get some breathing room, staring into space for a while. 

Is he allowed to smoke in here? Not that it would matter, with all his shit being locked in the car. Even though it’s far too warm for it, he misses his coat. And his sketchbook. And his bag, and every other distraction he usually brings with him. There’s only so long he can stand the pressure of needing to participate in surrounding conversation. He tries anyway. Some comments fall flat, some don’t – he comforts himself by saying everyone is too drunk to care. It doesn’t help. He’ll remember longer than they do, for sure. Maybe staying quiet really is the way to go.

Though he looked to be in good enough spirits when he entered the club and sat down, the tired look returns to Vincent’s face when he sees the way that Cirice is folding in on himself. In contrast to his own position, Vincent is seated facing away from the bar, his elbows up and one arm spread out on the bar. Open and confident and taking up room. He downs the rest of the drink. It’s stale and bitter and gritty and only after swallowing does he realize that it’s from the whiskey eating through the cheap styrofoam.

‘ _Fucking gross.’_

The woman brings up the lights to her boyfriend – something about the color choice in the club. Almost without thinking, Cirice turns to them.

“I think all the red is supposed to look kinda like, seazy-sexy,” Cirice slurs a little when he speaks, gesturing with his hands as if it would help him articulate his point more clearly. “Just looks creepy. Sinister, like a horror movie. ‘Specially cause it keeps _moving_ , you know?” He draws an oblong shape in the air with his finger. 

As if on cue, the ceiling lights rotate again in their slow, lazy circle. 

She laughs. 

“Yeah, it’s making my eyes all fuzzy. I can’t even make out where anything ends and begins.”

“Maybe cause your contacts?” Her boyfriend asks. “Told you you should’ve worn your glasses.” 

“No! They make me look dorky.”

The boyfriend makes a quiet remark about his preference for “dorky chicks” and Cirice leaves them to it, actually smiling and laughing at their exchange. Normally it would piss him off, but on them... It’s sort of cute. 

“This place reminds me of a horror movie,” Vincent says, toying with the ends of Cirice’s hair at the back of his neck. 

The boyfriend gives Vincent a strange look, eyebrows quirked. He points the finger of the arm that’s around his girlfriend in Cirice’s direction. 

“Didn’t he just…” 

This time he can’t stop himself from saying something about it. 

“ _Please_ don’t tell me you’re gonna be doing this shit all night.”

It comes out a lot sharper than he thought it would, earning him a few surprised glances from their company for the night. He feels unsteady and might even sway a little on the seat but he doesn’t have it in him to feel embarrassed or childish. 

“Oh, come on–” 

“Vince, are you even paying attention to what I’m saying? Do you ever?”

The group goes awkwardly quiet, along with one or two strangers within earshot, but they seem to be keeping their distance. Or pretending to keep their distance. What if they’re judging? They’re probably gonna talk about this later. Probably gonna laugh, probably gonna think he’s a total ass, probably– 

“You said you weren’t gonna be doing this shit anymore,” Cirice says quietly. 

He isn’t sure Vincent even heard him until he hears a huff and sees Vincent cross his arms through his peripheral vision. 

Give it a minute. 

Give it another. 

And another. 

...This is stupid. Of course Vincent isn’t gonna give him any sort of conversation about this. Not here at least. 

_‘I mean, what else were you expecting?’_

Whatever. Cirice sighs. 

“I’m gonna take a walk,” he finally says. He runs a hand through his hair, sweat damp and frizzing in the humid air.

“Where are you gonna walk to?” 

“Around! Fuck, I don’t know!” Cirice turns to the friends, unsure of whether he should even say anything to them. “Sorry,” is all he can manage, not knowing how else to articulate himself. They say nothing. 

A brief cheer rises from those milling around the stage as the band slows to a crawl and the drummer counts them into a new song with four resounding cracks of her drumsticks. The band explodes into the next part of their medley, replacing the cheery screaming brass with something so heady and dark that it’s almost tangible, heavy, still not losing the overall tone that they'd obviously worked hard to perfect. Wandering around looking for something to fill the void is as good a distraction as any. 

_‘Deep into Hell I go!’_ Cirice thinks, all mock cheer and excitement.

Not exactly having a plan, Cirice shoves his way through the crowd until he reaches the center, where it was at least 10 degrees hotter and absolutely not where he needed to be right now. If he could close his eyes and pretend the swaying of bodies bumping into his own motionless one was an ocean, it would be a little more bearable, he thinks. As luck would have it, closing his eyes against the strobing lights only turns them a deeper red behind his eyelids and the dance music makes it impossible to fully separate himself from his environment. He takes to the mindfulness exercises he read about online instead. What was it again?

Five things you see,

four things you hear,

three things you smell,

two things you taste,

one thing you feel. 

( _'I feel sick.'_ )

It doesn’t work. Or he doesn’t try hard enough. That's a common problem with him, it seems. He doesn't try hard enough. His head feels too heavy and he finds himself letting it lean to one side, cheek angled upward. After a particularly harsh shoulder check from someone approximately four times his size, he lets himself get pushed around by the current a little until he gets his footing. He doesn’t socialize. He doesn’t dance. There’s no reason for him to be here. 

_‘What the fuck ever.’_

Left step forward, a step to the side, and a step to close the feet together. Slow, quick, quick. 

Easy enough, though the timing doesn’t really work too well with the music. In fact, it doesn’t work at all. Too lazy and uncoordinated, a bit too awkward to look like he was confidently doing his own thing, but it’s the only thing he knows.

The air is thick with heat and sweat and noise, along with what smells like smoke. Definitely not cigarettes, but something sweet that reminds him of the woods. Incense, maybe. His mind floats back to all those theories as to why this bar was so friendly to the scarier members of the clergy. He thought he’d seen a Grucifix pin on a lapel or two; must’ve been his imagination.

Left step forward, a step to the side, and a step to close the feet together. Close the square.

Being lost in the crowd in this state of mind is what he would usually refer to as a “sensory nightmare”, but for a while it’s nice to let himself feel that distant sense of being crowded and sort of overwhelmed, all movement directed by those of the people around him. The music dulls until the bassline shaking the floor and blowing out the speakers is nothing more than a weak heartbeat. If everything stayed like this forever, that might be fine. A sea of people, all moving individually and yet at the same time, all making up a single undulating organism.

He opens his eyes and stops lazily spinning and swaying when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Whether it's the headrush or just from keeping them closed for so long, he isn't sure, but his vision is tunneling and he has to squint to see clearly. The lights sting a little. 

“Thought you didn’t dance.”

“I’m not.” 

He tries to project himself over the music to be heard clearly and ends up yelling instead. Even though he can see someone’s giving him an odd look from the corner of his eye, he can’t find it in him to care. When he turns away, the hand on his shoulder squeezes to try to turn him around. He jerks out of its grip but it quickly finds him again, this time grabbing a hold of the sleeve of his shirt. 

“I think you should come sit back down.”

He pretends not to have heard him. 

“Don’t be like that.” 

Everything that’s been swimming around in his head comes out in a rush before he can stop to articulate it properly. 

“Like _what_? I thought I had to get out and live a little, Vin! Or did you mean only on your terms? I’m not allowed to go do my own thing the way you do? What is it?”

Vincent puts on a confused face. All it does is make the pulse thrumming in his ears pound harder. He tries to corral Cirice in, pulling him by the elbow through the crowd and back toward the front of the club despite his squirming. 

“Cirice, what the fuck are you talking about? Come on, you’re too drunk, you need to–” 

The drinks, the noise, the movement, being grabbed and pushed around – it’s way too much. Skull shattering at the seams, pulsing, molten veins, molotov cocktail. 

“ _Let go of me!_ ”

He yanks his arm out of Vincent’s grasp, stumbling back from the momentum and struggling to right himself. He steps funny on the heel of his boot, one of his ankles buckling under unsteady weight. He almost spills to the ground but manages to keep himself vertical, standing as steadily and straight as he can to look Vincent in the face. 

People are watching.

“Get away from me.”

After a quick glance around, Vincent comes in close and gives him a stern look. 

“Cirice, let’s go. You’re embarrassing me,” he hiss-whispers. 

“I k _no_ w. _F_ uck you.” His voice wavers, emphasizing all the wrong syllables and dragging out the “F” in “fuck” for a little longer than intended when his brain lags behind his mouth. 

People are staring. 

Gently, Vincent puts his hand on the side of Cirice’s neck and looks at him strangely, pulling him in. Despite trying to steel himself and hold his glare, Cirice shrinks back; eyes widening and unable to hold contact and shoulders raised. Like a dog about to be yelled at for digging in the trash. He remembers all the times that he laughed at him and all the little needling comments. Vincent comes closer still and Cirice thinks he's gonna kiss him. Or smack him. Or something. 

But he doesn't. 

“Try to calm down and then come find me when you’re ready to go home, okay?” 

Vincent pulls away. Turns. Walks off. 

He loses sight of him through the crowd, and then he’s alone. Empty.

Disappointed?

Still being bumped around by the ebb and flow of people, Cirice stands staring after Vincent for what feels like a few minutes until he’s jolted out of it by someone’s shoulder hitting his back. A hand brings itself up to rub absently at his upper chest as if to dispel the strange, tight feeling settling there.

It’s fine. Ride service, remember? He won't even have to _look_ at the guy for the rest of the night if he didn’t want to. It wouldn’t be the first time Vincent came home to find the bedroom door locked and a blanket left out on the couch. Except… Shit, his things were still in the car. If he did manage to get a ride with someone else, could he guarantee that he’d get any of his stuff back? The people they rode over with seemed decent enough, but Vincent… He shakes his head out. No time for that. 

Shoving through the crowd, Cirice makes an escape to the men’s room for what he hopes is some quiet. Thankfully there’s only one or two people milling around, so he pulls his phone from his front pocket and he locks himself in the far stall to scroll through his contact list. When he doesn’t see the ride number, he scrolls through again. 

And then again. 

He could’ve sworn that he saved the number the day after he got it. In fact, it looks like a few contacts he remembered saving were missing. His hand tightens and tightens until he hears something creaking, unsure of whether it’s something in his phone or his fingers. Well then. The number should still be somewhere in his outgoing calls, shouldn’t it? Easy enough to find considering he rarely ever called anybody.

When he opens his outgoing call list, those are wiped too. 

_‘Fucking. Asshole_.’

Once again, his pulse beats hard in his ears. The surge of rage and adrenaline is so intense that Cirice feels lightheaded and his stomach churns. With a growl, he kicks the wall of the bathroom stall, the resulting crash and rattle echoing slightly off the tiled walls. When that doesn’t help, he does it a few more times. The loose door of the bathroom stall rattles with every impact, each kick punctuated by a curse or wordless grunt. 

When it starts to hurt but the feeling doesn’t go away, he switches to the other foot, stomping at the metal toilet paper dispenser and the toilet itself. His boot hits the raised toilet seat with a loud crack as a fracture forms by the hinge. The initial surge of rage fades and quickly shifts into regret and shame when metal creaks and starts to bend in, the dispenser now hanging off center. 

Someone’s probably gonna have to fix that. 

A dull pain spreads through his shoulder blades where his back hits the wall. Against his better judgement, Cirice slides down the wall and hugs his knees, trying to stop the room from spinning through sheer force of will. There’s no looming threat of a panic attack, at least not that he can feel, but that does less to comfort him than he’d hoped. Bile churns some more, but doesn’t threaten to come up. Willing himself to get a grip, he runs through his options. Strange area of town in the middle of the night. No ride service number, no money for a cab, no busses, no flyer.

Slowly, shakily, he climbs to his feet. If he could find _somebody_ from the church, they might be able to help him. At the very least, they should have a number he could call, right? 

Pointedly ignoring the aching in his feet, Cirice staggers out of the men’s room, eyes ringed red and phone still in hand. The band has resumed their previous brassy sound, so energetic that it’s almost frantic. Standing motionless, he lets his eyes sweep over all the people who couldn’t care less about anybody else’s problems. In the worst way, it makes him feel better. Apathetic inaction was better than outright malice. He clears his throat. That’s not helpful. Instead of judging people, he keeps his eye out for a sign of… Something. A mask, a Grucifix, a habit or veil. 

No luck, at least not until he sees a girl he thinks he might vaguely recognize from the church – or he could be wrong and it could just be the black lipstick and rosary making him see what he wants to see. She’s sitting in the back corner, in what looks to be the one clean booth with a larger group of people all crowded together. 

He makes fleeting, almost-eye contact with the man seated off to her side, but it’s broken in an instant as he continues his conversation. Cirice squints, vision blurry and head pounding. The guy’s dressed a little too nice for this place. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to the elbows, sunglasses hooked in the unbuttoned neckline. Perhaps it’s an attempt to appear casual. The illusion is spoiled by the dark waistcoat he's got on for some damn reason, as if it isn't hotter than Hell in here.

He can’t exactly place that face, but he looks familiar. Perhaps from a picture, or around the church grounds. Maybe just one of the people he’d seen on his way in.

The lights rotate and the moving shadows redefine the lines in his skin, momentarily filling in a sunken eye socket and hollow cheek with black. 

Cirice thinks he might have tried to gasp, but the breath catches in his throat and almost makes him choke. The panicked feverish sweat that had been blanketing him this whole time is quickly replaced with cold. Turning on his heel, he makes to dissolve back into the crowd. He looked busy. Much too preoccupied to be bothered. And anyway, Cirice would rather drop dead before crawling over there, fall down drunk and on the verge of tears, asking for help in front of all those people all because of a stupid disagreement. Try to forget seeing him, try to forget him seeing you seeing him, try to forget him seeing you seeing him seeing– 

His thoughts freeze mid-death spiral. Oh, Vincent is going to have some words.

It was still preferable to asking some stranger for a lift back, or trying to walk home on his own. Cirice is trembling, arms wrapped around himself in a protective embrace. A thin layer of sweat leaves his arms feeling dirty and tacky. Tracking down Vincent and his friends is far easier and faster than trying to pick out a clergy member from the endless sea of dark clothes and edgy haircuts. They’re sitting around the bar right where he left them, having an animated conversation about something or another. He reaches out and grabs onto the back of Vincent’s shirtsleeve. 

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hi, babe. Feeling better?” 

“Sorry,” he slurs, swaying on his feet. “I think I drank too much.”

There’s a strange, empty feeling in his head and his chest, making him feel clumsy and weightless. Vincent gets an arm around Cirice’s waist and ushers him in, back into the circle. If anything is said to him, Cirice doesn’t catch it over the ringing in his ears and the surrounding noise pollution. Vincent rubs his shoulder and upper arm reassuringly. They sit like that for ages, Vincent still talking to his friends and Cirice staring at a fixed point on the bar. Everything feels soft and unsteady, as if the floor was about to fall out from beneath them, taking the bar and the club and everybody inside with it. He digs his fingers into Vincent’s arm to anchor himself, twisting the fabric of his shirt until he turns his attention over to him. 

“Can we just go home already?”

Cirice winces when his voice wobbles too much for his liking. Shame worms its way back in, makes itself at home in that empty cavern in his chest. The air feels too hot and too cold all at once, throwing Cirice even further off balance. It’s getting more and more difficult to keep his composure, a small groan escaping his throat. Furrowing his eyebrows, Vincent gives him a sympathetic look and sighs. There’s a quick back and forth between the three, but by that time Cirice is already back to staring at the table and idly twisting the fabric still clutched in his hand. 

“Alright. Come on, lightweight. Let’s go,” Vincent says suddenly. And then they’re moving, Cirice responding with a confused “ _whuh_?” as Vincent pulls him away, steers him out of the club and onto the sidewalk in what feels to be one fluid motion.

The metaphorical wall in his brain is still up – senses dull and with a soft, buzzing quality to them – but at least now in the cold and quiet night air, it’s easier to breathe and to generally exist inside his own body. Cirice takes his hand from Vincent’s sleeve, fingers aching a little as he straightens them out. For lack of a better place to put them, he crosses his arms in front of his chest. 

“Oh, shit! Jimmy, where did we park again?”

The boyfriend (‘ _Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, but maybe Jim or James_ ,’ Cirice mentally repeats to himself, squeezing his arms around the biceps) freezes with his keys halfway out of his pocket. 

“... Fuck,” Jimmy-maybe-Jim-or-James says, looking around with wide eyes before turning to look questioningly at his girlfriend. His girlfriend whose name he still doesn't know. His girlfriend who turns to Cirice and puts a cool hand on his upper arm. 

“Are you good to walk?” 

Cirice looks at the hand and then up at the woman. Her eyes are so heavily ringed in eyeliner and shadowed by her bangs that he can’t even find them. At first, his drunkbrain assumes she means _home_ before logic catches up and realizes that what she means is around the parking lot. What he means to say is “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know your name.”

She seems caught off guard, but then the expression melts into a smile. Her head tilts to the side, face catching the light off the neon sign. Oh, there are her eyes. 

“Amber.”

“...Okay.”

Amber and Jimmy-maybe-Jim-or-James seem to have a brief exchange that he doesn’t hear, which Vincent is quickly pulled into. 

“How about we go look for the car and bring it around, yeah? Easier that way.” 

So much for not making things difficult. Cirice leans a little until his forehead hits Vincent’s temple, nuzzling into his hair in an attempt to hide himself. Pathetic. Vincent laughs and the other two walk off, both pointing to opposite ends of the parking lot. 

It’s still hard to pay very close attention to what’s happening around him. With his face still in Vincent’s hair, the buzz of the overhead light is so loud in his ears but Vincent’s voice is so, so far away. Cirice is slouching hard, sweat damp hair all in his face, mumbling in response whenever Vincent says something to him. 

“What was that?” 

“Said sorry,” he repeats, squinting up at Vincent, trying to stop the sulky little whine creeping back into his voice. “They’re so nice and I’m really drunk and I made it weird again and I wanna go home.” 

The look he gets is indecipherable, but it makes him feel like some stupid, bratty little kid all the same, so he turns his attention elsewhere. To the buzzing lights above, the neon sign over the club entrance, the empty bottles littering the gutter that catch the light and reflect it back, anything else. He gets lost staring at the neon reflection in the ranbowy, oily pool in the crags and fissures of the parking lot. 

The whole world starts to feel like it's spinning too quickly. Cirice backs up to the brick exterior of the club and rests against it, both to get some space and to keep from falling onto his ass in the middle of the sidewalk. Vincent sidles up beside him, brushing strands of hair off of his clammy forehead. The hand lowers to the back of his neck.

“You know,” Vincent starts. 

Cirice lets his eyes fall shut and curls his hands into fists, sighing deeply through his nose. 

Here we go. The singsongy way he drags out the vowels, the conspiratorial tone. 

“You could make it up to me, if you want.”

Here we fucking go again, with that stupid fucking voice. 

Cirice never wants to hear that voice ever again. 

The world contracts and Vincent is right there, pressing in on him. He kisses him too hard on the mouth, misaligned and fumbling, Cirice’s lower lip mashed uncomfortably against his teeth. That’s gonna be sore later. Whether by instinct or obligation, he kisses back for a moment, only to then turn away at the feeling of a tongue in his mouth probing around like a slug. He shudders. The visual makes his stomach and fists clench. The cloying taste and smell of alcohol and sweat makes him nauseous, or maybe it’s something else. 

“Fuck offa me, man,” Cirice slurs against the corner of Vincent’s mouth. 

A hand under his jaw angles his face back in, fingers digging harshly into his cheekbone and the corner of his jaw. Too crowded, too hard, too difficult to breathe. 

Stomach churning, Cirice imagines how _funny_ it would be if he puked all over Vincent _right now_ . Purge out all of the booze and melted styrofoam and every rotten, horrible thing inside of him and onto someone more deserving. He snorts and laughs into Vincent’s mouth at the mental image, uneven and disoriented. ‘ _That’ll teach him.’_ A hand wanders down his chest and stomach, and Cirice sort of wishes that the bitter taste of acid _would_ rise to the back of his throat. With a hand to the chest, he weakly shoves at Vincent and intentionally avoids whatever expression is on his face. Not that he’d be able to see it anyway, with the blinding white headlights approaching their spot by the door. Squinting, the both of them raise a hand to shield their eyes until the car turns to the curb.

“Hey lovebirds, get in.”

Oh. Right. The car. And the drive home and then the being at home and the– 

Vincent opens the back passenger door and slides in, holding it open until Cirice gets close enough to grab it himself. When he gets himself settled – coat comfortably in place despite the lining sticking to his sweaty arms and the burn of alcohol, embarrassment, anger under his skin, messenger bag slung over his shoulder and protectively lodged tight between himself and the door – Vincent and the other two are already chatting away. Watching Vincent from the corner of his eye, he starts to feel dizzy again. 

A hand reaches for his in the back seat. Casual. Like nothing even happened. 

He doesn’t take it. 

Cirice figures that Vincent wouldn’t bring it up on his own any time soon, and of course not in front of his friends, but does Cirice really want to take the initiative? Over the years, they’ve had more than a couple of drunken post-party encounters. It really wasn't even all that bad, he guesses. Just awkward. Embarrassing. That’s all. Groaning, Cirice rubs his temple with the heel of his palm. His skull hurts. He should _definitely_ sober up before thinking too hard about this.

The car’s rattling and shaking too much to put his forehead on the glass, and keeping his eyes closed only serves to make him motionsick, so he counts the streetlights instead. They look sort of like stars, if he squints right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That was also uncomfortable. But at least we finally get a quick glimpse of the big man himself. It was probably quite obvious, but Cirice has of course never seen what Papa looks like outside of full regalia. Plus he was wasted, so. 
> 
> I like to imagine that the song playing when they first enter the club is [Trouble’s “Snake Eyes”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCtsbuyBl6Y), which then makes a nice transition into Lost Highway, and then[Angelo Badalamenti’s “The Pink Room”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3yxQK73BuY) when Cirice is by himself in the crowd, which finally builds back up into the final minute or so of “Snake Eyes” when he exits the bathroom. Little confusing, but that’s what I get for writing all of my scenes out of order and months apart, I suppose! 
> 
> This is the last of the upsetting Vincent stuff, at least for a while. You can relax now.


	6. The Old College Try

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are moving a bit quicker now. So far, these chapters have taken place over the course of a _while_ , maybe two months or so, but I’m not feeling too confident in my ability to get that across clearly. Some people were under the impression that each event depicted was happening back to back, but that’s not the case.
> 
> Anyway. No warnings for this one. Good times had by all.

When Cirice wakes up, it’s with a horrible ringing in his ears and the side of his face pressed hard against the couch armrest. 

Feeling too warm and way too constricted, he groggily wrestles his way out from under a too hot blanket, throwing it aside and pausing when he realizes he’s still fully dressed, though severely disheveled. Shoes and everything. The sudden movement brings about a steady throbbing to his temples and behind his eyes. He groans, slowly rising in grit and volume until it’s a growl. After several minutes of attempting to make himself comfortable and sleep it off, he realizes that there was never a ringing in his ears in the first place. It’s his phone.

“Aw, _ fuck.” _

He rolls over, blindly groping around the coffee table and surrounding area until he finally finds his phone, half tucked underneath the throw rug that had somehow gotten partially flipped over. Cirice silences his phone, but has to blink away the blurriness in his vision before being able to read the alert. 

_ meeting @ multipurpose building E 3:30pm. Important!!! _

Cirice looks above it to the time on his phone right as the hour rolls over to 2pm. He squeezes his eyes closed and groan-growls again.

“ _ Fuck, fuck, balls, shitass, god damn _ ,” he grits out, kicking on each syllable for emphasis like a petulant and foul-mouthed toddler. The mini-tantrum doesn't do much to ease his pounding headache, or the mounting feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach. It doesn’t help the sore feeling in the heels of his feet either.

“Good morning. Or, afternoon.”

As ridiculous as it sounds, Cirice had been kind of hoping for Vincent to magically not be there when he woke up in the morning. But here he is, leaning over the couch and, aggravatingly enough, looking no worse for wear. 

“Hi,” Cirice says, throwing his arm over his face to hide in the crook of his elbow. He rests his phone on his chest. “Why am I on the couch?”

He hears Vincent’s hands drag along the upholstery as he steps away and makes his way to the next room.

“Well, you really didn’t wanna go to bed,” he says. Sounds like he’s in the kitchen. Cirice bites the inside of his cheek. Unfortunate. That’s where he was planning on going. Maybe he can get in the shower first and  _ then  _ consume inhuman amounts of caffeine and ibuprofen instead. 

“You wouldn’t even let me get your shoes off or anything.”

Cirice looks down at his feet, sticking out over the edge of the armrest. He was wondering about that. Only one of his boots is untied and there’s little crumbs of dried mud ground into the upholstery from his kicking. At the sound of more rustling, Cirice peeks out from under his elbow and sees Vincent cracking open a water bottle and taking a drink. 

“Hmm.”

“Watched tv for a while,” Vincent pauses to take another drink, gesturing with the hand holding the cap. “And then you knocked out, so I went to bed.” 

Memories of the previous night after getting into the car are especially vague and fuzzy, almost dreamlike, but… Yeah. Yeah, that all sounds about right. He’s been through this song and dance enough times for it to start feeling familiar.  He lets his arm fall to the side and gives himself a few more indulgent seconds of staring at the ceiling. Sighing, he hauls himself upright, off the couch, and into the bedroom. It takes him a while to locate something decent to wear; most of their shit is strewn about on the bedroom floor or on the bed instead of on hangers. Someone ought to do something about that. At least their towels are clean and neatly folded, though still in the basket in front of the linen closet.

A mostly unwrinkled t-shirt is thrown onto his shoulder, the two socks that he finds in the dresser are at least the same color, and the jeans he’s been wearing for the past couple days are still good to go. From the window he could tell that it was somewhat gloomy out, but any other articles aside from his coat are deemed gratuitous and not worth the hassle. He can't find it in himself to worry too much about being underdressed or at the possibility of rain; most of his day is going to be spent indoors, anyway.

While waiting for the water to warm, Cirice brushes his teeth and grimaces at himself in the mirror, all dark circles and greasy hair and red eyes. A bit of toothpaste dribbles out of the corner of his mouth. Once his reflection is suitably obscured by steam and fog, he tosses yesterday’s clothes into the hamper and sluggishly attempts to clean himself up. It doesn’t really matter how lazily done it is; anything’s an improvement over being coated in what he’s pretty sure is the physical manifestation of shame and frustration. 

The hot water makes it easier for his mind to wander, and he finds himself piecing together the events of the night prior, despite how badly his drunken behavior makes him want to cringe or maybe even crawl in a hole.

Everything is still muddled, but he recalls getting out of the car. Some words, some sounds… some stairs? 

Right. 

Vincent helping him up the flight of stairs to their apartment, with his arm slung around his waist. Cirice angrily muttering under his breath the whole time. The toe of his shoe catches the edge of the step, but he somehow manages to _ not  _ eat shit and bust his face. He grips the stair banister and continues hauling himself up, Vincent then following close behind to make sure he doesn’t fall in the other direction either. They finally make it up the stairs, and Cirice puts his back to the wall beside their door while he waits for Vincent with the keys. 

Finally getting the door unlocked and open, Vincent gets Cirice inside, leaning him safely against the wall of the entryway while he relocks the door and flips on the hall light. 

“That’s not yours,” Cirice slurs when Vincent takes away his messenger bag and drops it by the door with a dull thud. He looks down at his bag, and then at Vincent crouched by his feet, only noticing that he’s going for his boots when he feels a hand pulling on his ankle. 

“Up.”

His foot raises a couple inches off the ground, but Cirice pulls it away (“Hey. That’s not yours either.”) before Vincent can prop it up on his leg to untie the laces. With a long-suffering sigh, Vincent shrugs and stands, toeing out of his own shoes instead. Another handful of bitter words comes tumbling out. 

“What’re you mumbling about over there?” 

He seems to feel himself speak, but he can’t make out his own words, nor Vincent’s response. With one hand between his shoulder blades to steer him toward the couch, Vincent gives him a sad smile and a good natured pat on the chest. Cirice remembers seeing the tv turn on and Vincent head into the kitchen, and… that’s about it. 

Okay. Who hasn’t gotten a little  _ too _ drunk and weird at a club before? That’s what they’re for, right? Not his problem. But the comments, and the contacts, and– 

Cirice cuts the water, redresses, and goes through the rest of his morning routine, all with shaking hands and a strange feeling that he can’t place. Standing in front of the mirror, he wipes away a little window in the fog and stares himself in the eye. His skin is red and blotchy from the hot water and the hangover. Strands of hair stick to his forehead and cheeks. He doesn't bother to push it back into place.  Before he flicks the light back off, he pulls a sour face and sticks his tongue out at his reflection. 

In the kitchen, Cirice rummages through every drawer and cabinet they have until he finds both the bottle of instant coffee powder (in the door of the fridge) and a couple of those little single dosage packets of ibuprofen (in the cutlery drawer, under the organizer tray). 

“How ya feeling?” Vincent asks conversationally. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world and last night was business as usual. Shoulders subconsciously creeping up to his ears, Cirice’s cheeks go red when he realizes that it kind of was.

“How come my wakeup alarm didn’t go off?” 

Setting the timer for two minutes, Cirice sticks a mug of tap water in the microwave. He really has to buy a kettle or something sometime soon. This is just ridiculous. He goes back to digging through the cabinets for a travel mug, but comes up empty. All he finds is a dorky looking yellow thermos with floral print all up the side. It’ll do. 

“I turned it off. Figured you needed your sleep.”

Lips pressed into a thin line, Cirice’s fists clench hard. The plastic bottle of coffee powder in his left hand bends in until the flip-top lid pops open.

“Hey, next time don’t touch my shit, alright?”

Vincent does little more than raise his eyebrows at Cirice as he aggressively scoops powder into the thermos with the little plastic spoon that came in the jar. 

“Excuse me?”

_ Scoop. _

“The alarm’s on there for a reason. What if I was late?”

_ Scoop. _

“And I don't like you making those shitty little remarks at me, either.” 

_ Scoop.  _

That’s probably too much coffee, but he desperately needs something to do with his hands. Where are his cigarettes? Probably still in his coat pocket, and hopefully not crushed completely to death from sleeping on them. 

Not even dignifying Cirice with a proper response, Vincent chuckles with a drawn out “ _ oookaaay _ ”.

Spurred on by the impassivity, Cirice sets the bottle and spoon on the counter a little more forcefully than he'd intended. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a slow, deep breath through his nose and out his mouth. 

_ ‘ _ _ Keep calm.’  _

“Was that necessary? What’s your problem today?”

Gritting his teeth, he steps into Vincent’s personal space until they’re practically nose to nose. 

“My _ problem _ is you deleting all my shit out of my phone,” he hisses, “Why? For what? Because you cannot fucking  _ sta-a-and _ the idea of me not being glued to your side anymore?” 

Vincent cocks his head at him.

“That’s what you think? Really?” He rolls his eyes when Cirice doesn’t answer, only glares harder, face a mix of anger and disbelief. “I didn’t touch your phone, you probably just forgot–”

“And! And,” he wets his lower lip before speaking again. “About that  _ other _ shit you pulled.”  He jabs a finger accusingly into Vincent’s chest. Vincent looks down at it, then back up to stare him in the eye impassively. “Don’t you ever try and grab at me like that again.” 

“Uh-huh. Is that what you’re upset about? I’m surprised you even remember  _ anything _ with how drunk you were. God, do you have any idea how embarrassing–” 

Cirice raises his hands, as if clawing at the air on either side of his head, and lets out a long, frustrated growl before Vincent can get any further in his glossing over of the issue and blame shifting. 

“You don’t know! You don’t know what I can remember! I remember it all just fine, thank you very much!”

“Do you?”

“I! Remember! Everything!”

It’s a lie. He knows it, Vincent knows it, anyone with half a brain knows it. But it’s a comforting lie, at least, even if it makes him sound like a brat throwing a fit. Where does he go from here? Admittedly, it probably wasn't a very good idea to bring any of this up while tired, hurt, _massively_ hungover, and without much of a plan for if shit goes south. But in the absence of good ideas, bad ideas are always reasonable. Vincent shoves his hand to the side by the wrist. He opens his mouth to say something in response, the intake of breath alone filling Cirice with a feeling of dread. The sound of the microwave going off catches both of their attention and gives Cirice an easy out. 

“...I got somewhere to be.”

Cirice rushes through the last few steps of preparing his coffee – not that it needed much more prep. That’s kind of the point of it. Still, he's grateful for the excuse to break eye contact, even if he can feel Vincent’s presence lingering behind him. Cirice huffs to himself, nothing but bitter humor. 

_ ‘Fucking leave already.’ _

Looking into his coffee, he notes that it seems… Sludgy. How many spoonfuls was that? Four? Five? It’s probably pretty disgusting. He chances a quick sip to be sure.

It scalds his tongue and throat all the way down to his stomach. ‘ _ Moron. Left it in the microwave too long _ .’ He swears, loses the flowery yellow thermos lid-cup in the sink, and burns his hand when some coffee spills over the lip when he jumps.  Vincent rolls his eyes, his arms crossed, but doesn’t say anything about it. Doesn’t ask if he’s okay. ‘ _ Yeah, that’ll teach me _ .’ At least burning the hell out of his mouth solves the taste problem. But he has to admit, accidentally hurting himself in such a dumb way four seconds after speaking his mind is a bit of a blow to the ego. So much for the tough guy act, right? 

Back on the living room table, Cirice’s phone beeps a few more times. He fishes the thermos lid out of the sea of grimy dishes taking up the entire right side of the sink and gives it a quick rinse, twisting it on tight as he shoulders past Vincent. 

It’s a reminder for the bus. Leaving now would give him about 25 minutes to wait around at the stop. Boring, but much better than staying here any longer. Cirice keeps his mouth firmly shut, molars grinding, as he collects his belongings. 

Phone in hand, wallet in the couch, keys  _ shockingly _ on their hook, coat on the back of the bathroom door, (cigarettes inside the coat) and his bag still waiting for him by the door. Mentally, he runs through his routine and list of necessities, then again two more times. Everything is accounted for, but it feels like he’s forgetting something. Not an item… something he was supposed to do? Or something he did? He shakes his head. Probably nothing. Probably something to do with Vincent. A goodbye kiss, maybe?

He laughs bitterly to himself. A rush of nervous energy blooms in his chest and the pit of his stomach the whole way to the door, making him feel sort of giddy and sick. On his way out, just because he can, he leans back in. 

“And Vin? Can you please do your dishes for once?”

With that, he clicks the door shut and makes his way down the outside stairs. He picks up the pace once he’s on the sidewalk, eager to make it to the side gate for fear of Vincent following him out. The last thing he needs right now is a knock-down drag-out fight out here in front of The Old One and everyone. Thankfully, his escape goes uninterrupted and the walk to the sheltered bench is uneventful as always. It’s only once he’s sitting stationary and left alone with his thoughts that his mind really starts racing.

What happens when he goes home?

What happens when Vincent is still there? 

What happens when Vincent is still there and he’s demanding an explanation? An apology?

Cirice checks his phone. The bus should be coming soon. Then he’ll be at the cathedral and he can go to his meeting and he can figure everything out _ later. _ Just leave it for later, like always. He figures he doesn’t owe Vincent any sort of explanation anyhow. 

_ 'Good luck with that.' _

  
  
  


Before heading to the meeting area, Cirice stops in to see Mayrose. He’d rearranged his bag on the bus to make room for the thermos, only to notice a distinct lack of any neon flyers with phone numbers on the back among the mess. The discovery earned a low  _ oh, you’re fucking kidding me, _ along with an aside glance from the elderly man across the row.

Mayrose waves with a small smile when she sees him awkwardly making his way over to her desk. He doesn’t sit down. 

“...Hi.”

“Hi! Good to see you!” 

He rubs a hand on his upper arm. It feels sore, like maybe there’s a bruise. He figures it’s from nervously digging his fingers into his arms all last night. Like the pounding headache and distinct feeling of something being _off_ wasn’t reminder enough.

“Um, yeah, thanks. Okay. I need the number again? I… kinda lost the paper you gave me.”

Without question, Mayrose jots down a number on a pink sticky note. She looks up at him, puts the end of the pen to her lips as she thinks, and then squeezes in a few more lines. The note is handed over to him, Cirice tilting his head to read it. There’s the somewhat familiar string of numbers that he recognizes as being the ride service number, the number to the volunteer center as a whole, and a third number that's labelled only by a cute, round drawing of a ghoul mask with an arrow connecting the two.  He nods and pulls out his sketchbook, flipping toward the back and sticking it to a random page. Nice and inconspicuous. When he puts the sketchbook away and looks back up, Mayrose is staring at him intently, still smiling. Cirice nods again, not making eye contact, unsure of what else to do.

“Well. That’s all I came here for, sooo… Thank you. Again.” 

She quirks an eyebrow.

“Is everything okay?” 

“...I have a meeting,” he says quickly, not even really sure where to go with that.

“Oh! Right, they should be placing the newbies soon!” She says, lacing her fingers together under her chin. Then, in a sly, more persuasive tone, “You wouldn’t happen to be wanting a position in the community center, would you?” 

She bats her eyelashes at him and Cirice has to look away to hide his almost-laugh, lest he spur on this stupid bit she’s roped him into. 

“I’m not really cut out for, um,” he clears his throat, “ _ outreach _ .”

Mayrose laughs and waves him off. 

“I’m just kidding. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

Cirice laughs along, though his is more like a rush of breath. He nods. Fiddles with the fraying lapel of his coat. Ending a conversation was always more difficult than beginning one, wasn’t it? God forbid they’d want to talk about the weather. Without another word, Cirice lifts a hand in an awkward wave and heads back out the way he came. He only gets a few feet away before he freezes in place, turns, and looks back at Mayrose.

“It was good to see you too. Sorry, I… Yeah.” 

“Go to your meeting!”

“Right! Okay!” 

  
  


He’s cutting it a little close time-wise, but he does find his way to the correct building and makes it into the specified room on time. There’s a good handful of people, none of which he recognizes, but he’s pretty alright with that. Really, the last thing he wants right now is to be seen by even more people he knows. 

For the most part, the meeting seems to be a refresher on what exactly clerical work entails. Cirice finds it hard to pay attention to a lecture about the importance of a good filing system and busies himself by playing with the little handle on the lid-cup of his thermos. He only perks up once they broach the topic of field work. As it turns out, in the Church of Ghost, “clerical work” often involves fetching ritual components at the start of each season. Though that mostly meant filling out orders online and over the phone, some components were locally gathered. The sea is only a short trip away from the cathedral, and was the source of many necessary components for rituals, at least where water ghouls were concerned. 

He’d only seen the thin stretch of the shore once, from the rental van on the initial drive over. The sand was rocky and covered in clumps of beached seaweed, the sky above seeming perpetually gloomy, and all of it infested with noisy sea birds and probably a fair amount of bugs. It looked perfect. He and Vincent planned to go down there to check it out sometime, but that plan quickly fell by the wayside in favor of more lively excursions. The Sibling in charge seems to take note of his piqued interest, furrowing their thin eyebrows.

“And due to the distance between our locations, those out for collection will have to cover the needs of the other cathedrals as well. I would like to reiterate that this is  _ hard work _ . Clerical work may be boring and lonely, but collection days are  _ not _ a vacation or an excuse to play around.”

Cirice gives them a wry smile from the corner of his mouth and spins the thermos around on the tabletop. 

“What exactly would we be collecting?” asks the woman to his left. 

The Sibling smiles and gestures to them in acknowledgement.

“Well, that would depend on the season. For the most part, it’s…” they begin to count off on their fingers, looking toward the ceiling as they recall the full list. “Certain shells, several species of kelp, moss, and grasses, carapaces, sand and seawater… That kind of thing. And lots of it!”

Sounds like a pretty good deal to him. Before the conversation can get too interesting, the Sibling steers it back toward how to properly document any components received from the other cathedrals or their more mysterious suppliers. Meaning of course, small businesses who could use the financial support but who don’t exactly want their names attached to anything too dark and Satanic that might hurt their wholesome, rustic image. Good to know that the cathedral supports small local businesses. 

He was wondering where they got all the goat’s blood from. 

  
  


“Now, on the subject of rituals,” the Sibling says, trailing off as they shuffle through some papers. “You all most likely will come into contact with, erm, the general populace more often than the Papa himself, so you're more likely notice Siblings expressing confusion or misinterpreting core beliefs. In addition to assisting during the ritual itself, you will be expected to look over any sermons or speeches written by the Papa. Often this will involve transcription, assuring clarity and making sure they address problem areas, and making sure that they read well when spoken aloud. Think of it like a peer review. ” 

They pass a paper to each person at the table. Cirice rests his hands and chin on top of the thermos, looking down at the paper in front of him while the Sibling prattles on about deadlines. The left side of the paper is taken up by large, flowing handwriting, apparently scanned from lined notebook paper. The handwriting itself is perfectly legible, but rambling and absolutely  _ littered _ with shorthand and footnotes. There’s some clunky grammar here and there as well. On the right is the same text, typed out and edited appropriately. Looks like the Papa has a bad habit of being a little too verbose, but nothing _too_ awful.

“Now, depending on the ritual, your tasks can range anywhere from standing aside with a tray of components for the Papa to take from as needed, to handling the eucharist, to preparing incense for the thurible, to simply lighting candles and arranging the altarbed. Most intricate rituals are actually overseen by bishops or cardinals, so don’t worry if…” 

He stares at the text on the left for a little bit longer than necessary, the Sibling’s voice blurring into white noise. They say you can learn a lot about someone from their handwriting. Funny. Tracing over the dramatic flourishes in the deep green ink with his nail, Cirice can’t come up with a single thing. 

All in all, the prospect of a stable job and living situation far outweighs any concerns with getting bored. He just had to make sure to avoid any of those “morale booster” social gatherings wherever possible. Or maybe not. What would a devil worshipper company mixer even look like? Just as his mind trails off to cheesy pop music laden with backmasking and styrofoam Baphomet heads, somebody sneezes and snaps him right back out of his daydream. 

_ ‘Wait, no. No time for that.’ _

Cirice pulls out his last packet of ibuprofen and knocks them back. Chasing them immediately with coffee sounds like a nightmare, so instead he crunches them until they’re easier to swallow. The bitter taste never bothered him too much. If anything, it wakes him up more than the caffeine did and the rest of the meeting goes on uninterrupted.

_ ‘Should I be taking notes?’ _

  
  


When the Sibling dismisses the meeting for the day, they stop Cirice at the door on his way out. 

“Hey, if you’re gonna tell me I need to stay after class, I don’t wanna hear it, I already got enough of that back in–” 

They hold up a hand to stop him; the look on their face makes him shut his mouth so fast that his teeth click, nearly catching his tongue. 

“You seem like you were having trouble focusing today. Office training begins soon and I  _ hope _ I won’t have to deal with complaints about any new priests spacing out on the job.” 

Cirice succeeds in not ducking his head, but still looks off to the side, unable to meet their eye for too long. 

“Sorry. I’m not feeling well today… But I figured this particular meeting was gonna be _far_ too informative to skip out on.”

He can’t help the way that the corner of his mouth twitches and the Sibling huffs amusedly despite themself, rolling their eyes. They put their hands on their hips and give him a wary  _ mm-hmm. _

“Nice one. Watch yourself, though. You don’t want anyone thinking that you  _ intend _ to be disrespectful.” 

This time, he does look at them. They raise an eyebrow at him, awaiting an answer.

“Alright. Understood.” 

Satisfied, they let him pass. 

Checking the bus schedule on his phone, he debates on whether or not it would be worth it to call for a ride. He could wait the 45 minutes at the stop, or… Actually, no. Nevermind. After last night, the thought of being trapped in a car with somebody for that long makes his skin crawl with shame. He can find a way to kill time until the bus comes, no problem. 

What he intends to do is draw. Maybe do some studies of the cathedral or the gardens. What happens is that he gets distracted flipping through the already filled pages at the front. Time feels much too slow, but not slow enough. Just to have something to do with his hands, he takes to filling in or erasing bits and pieces of more established drawings. It’s been a while since he finished anything, or even started anything new; not letting that eat at him is much easier said than done. By the time the bus comes, he’s filled half a page with formless, meandering spirals and maybe one or two thumbnail sketches. He feels too anxious to get anything of substance down, and too sick to care.

He doesn’t wanna go home at all. Waiting for the bus was a mistake.  _ All of this  _ was a mistake. 

The thought repeats endlessly in his head, even while boarding, and finding a seat, and watching the familiar landscape pass him by. It repeats even still as he walks from the stop by the apartment complex, and all the way up the stairs.

When he cautiously opens the door, the apartment is empty. 

Cirice sighs, suddenly very aware of how exhausted he is, the ungodly amount of caffeine in his system doing little more than keeping him vertical. In all honesty, he’s disappointed.  An empty house offers little closure. At least a fight can have a conclusion.  On the bright side, he can finally straighten the place up without distraction.

Towels get put up after spending a week folded in the basket. Laundry is sorted into three piles – Clean, Dirty, Dubious, with Clean put away as neatly as he could manage, Dirty tossed in the washer, and Dubious straight into the dryer to get the wrinkles or any weird smells out. 

The kitchen and living room get straightened up easily enough. Their cheap handheld vacuum makes quick work of the crumbs and mystery debris in the couch cushions, but Cirice later comes back to do it a few more times just to be sure. After sorting the important shit, the stacks of leaflets and junk mail taking over the counter are tossed in the kitchen trash. Cirice marks it down as a personal victory when he notices that the sink is clear of dirty dishes. 

It’s only once Cirice is exhausted and nestled into bed with the lights off and an ebook open on his phone that Vincent comes home. There’s a long stretch of soft movement coming from the living room — getting out of his jacket, shuffling around in the fridge. For a moment, Cirice doesn’t think he’s going to come into the room at all, but he locks his phone anyway, blanketing himself in total darkness. Cirice rolls over into his side, burrowing deeper into the comforter. 

Eventually Vincent does come in, wordlessly sliding into bed beside him but keeping his distance. He’s sure that Vincent is awake, just like he’s sure that Vincent must know that he’s awake. Time slows to a stop. He feels nauseous. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic feels like listening to a Mountain Goats album while drinking the cheapest vodka that shoplifting could buy. But like in a good way. Cathartic.
> 
> I’m trying to get a little more of Cirice’s _real_ personality going here, just not all at once. He’ll start to look more familiar soon enough. Gotta shed the doormatishness first.


	7. Some Kind of Disaster Relief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

A person can only handle so much introspection and ruminating. 

At some point you have to ask yourself, how much is enough? Is it really worth it? How long can you keep crawling in and out of bed day after day, dragging yourself through life and thinking to yourself, “ _yeah, that was fine_.”

When Cirice finally drags himself out of bed, Vincent is gone, leaving Cirice unsure whether to be more frustrated or relieved about his avoidance. According to the note scribbled on the fridge whiteboard, he’d supposedly gone out to the city to pick some things up for the house, leaving Cirice to find something else to occupy his time with. Everything on tv and online felt stale. He wasn't in the mood to listen to all those bands he was totally going to get around to checking out, and sitting around on the couch just made him feel irritable. A walk outside is far too intimidating – Cirice doesn’t particularly want to see anyone else. Or _be_ seen by anyone else, for that matter. There must be something around the house he can do. Eventually, after refreshing app after app on his phone and scrolling listlessly through inane social media posts for the better part of an hour, he settles on cleaning the apartment again.

He only gets halfway through sweeping the kitchen before his thoughts find their way back to that night after the club. Bits and pieces have been slowly floating back into place, but forcing it made his head hurt too much to try for long. Mumbling to himself, he scrolls through his phone until he finds a band he wouldn’t _hate_ listening to right now and cranks the volume as loud as it’ll go, which isn’t ld at all but is better than nothing. With his thoughts properly drowned out, he can focus on something productive.

Once he’s burnt through the brunt of his nervous energy and feels satisfied with the state of the apartment, he runs the shower. Sitting on the edge of the sink while waiting for the water to warm, his thoughts once again retreat back to that night as they seem to do every time he gets in the shower in the morning. 

He’d hoped that the hot water would push the thoughts from his head, but his brain obviously had other plans. It’s an unsettling feeling, not being able to remember something. So much so that he has to stop in the middle of washing his hair to think. He puts his palms over his eyes as if the phosphenes blooming behind his eyelids would help stimulate his memory. 

Car, stairs, door, hall, couch.

_“What’re you mumbling about over there?”_

Something happened.

He said something. 

He said something and Cirice had narrowed his eyes and made a sour face, but said nothing in return. What was it again?

“... such a _dick_ ,” is all that’s audible, though he’s practically spitting the words.

Vincent pats him on the chest. Steers him by the back of the neck to the couch, spending the night looking at the tv but being unable to focus long enough to understand any of it. 

_“Yeah, but I still love ya for it.”_

Cirice freezes, eyes snapping open at the memory, hissing immediately at the sting of soap in his eyes.

“Oh, mother _fucker_!” 

He curses the entire time he’s rinsing his eyes and his hair out, and then curses some more as he hurries through the rest of his shower. 

He can’t stop replaying that line in his head. Was that supposed to be some kind of joke? A way to make Cirice feel even more like shit? Mentally, he forces away that little voice in his head that only ever seems to tell him that he’s making a big deal out of nothing. A stupid and clumsy attempt at humor, not unlike all the others. They’d never been particularly _sweet_ to each other, always preferring sarcasm and dry jokes. Cirice can't recall the point where the fun little play slaps had turned into casual cruelty. Always picking and prodding at each other, disguising insults as jokes and backhanded compliments in hopes of “winning” whatever nonargument they were having that wouldn’t even matter at the end of the day. 

Salt in the wound, soap in the eye – whatever it was, it _hurt_. 

He gets himself dressed, but doesn’t bother with much else. That same lightheaded feeling resurfaces. Anger makes it difficult to concentrate and seemingly forces his mind from his body, leaving him off kilter and slightly removed. After a few laps around the apartment, mumbling and grumbling the entire time, he stops in front of the fridge. 

_Tempting._

He can be upset. He can at least allow himself that much. Rooting around, he comes out with the only thing they have left – an already opened wine bottle. He pulls the plastic stopper out with his teeth.

Father in Hell, just let him live through this week. 

From the moment Vincent came home that evening, there’d been a heavy, uneasy silence permeating in the air. At first he thought that Cirice had gone somewhere, only to finally notice him folded up in himself at the far end of the kitchen table. He eyes the near-empty wine bottle and scoffs. 

“Give me that.”

Vincent makes a grab for the bottle, swiping at air when Cirice drags it across the table to his chest and out of Vincent’s reach. With a long sigh, Vincent plops down on a kitchen stool on the other side of the table. He pulls out his phone, resting his chin in his hand. Cirice assumes he’s waiting for him to speak first. He doesn’t.

After a long, mind numbing stretch of silence, Vincent finally looks up. 

“What are you doing,” he sighs. It isn’t a question. Not really.

“Lease is almost up, you know. Gonna hafta move soon,” Cirice says. His words don’t slur too badly, he thinks, but his tongue still feels heavy and clumsy in his mouth, like trying to speak around cotton. 

“Yep. Couple days.” Vincent puts his phone face down on the table. “Why? Having second thoughts?”

Uncaring of how “unbecoming” it is, Cirice makes a sour, mocking face at him when Vincent quirks an eyebrow. 

‘ _Fuck you for looking all hopeful like that.’_

“No, I just… moving day is upon us,” Cirice slurs out dramatically, in a stage whisper with wide eyes and hands splayed for emphasis. “And I think… when I go, you shouldn’t come with me.”

“Cirice.”

“And I don’t particularly want you _here_ either.”

“ _Cirice_ ,” Vincent repeats. It’s quiet and subtle, but he can still make out that warning tone. The same kind of tone you’d use to scold a dog for eyeing your dinner for too long.

“ _I feel so bad,_ ” Cirice laughs into the palm of his hand, turning away. It always came back to guilt. “You obviously don’t want this the way I do. I know, I know you wanted to leave, but… All those things, the move, the new place, the church…”

Underneath the fragile veneer of conviction, his heart is hammering against his ribcage so hard that he can't help but imagine it shattering right through his sternum and landing with a wet thud on the table between them. Vincent drags his hands down his face, clasps them in front of his mouth like he’s studying the man in front of him. 

“Can't you do anything else aside from feel sorry for yourself all the time?”

His eyes follow Cirice’s fingertips as he runs them over the glass bottle, tapping up the sides with his nails. Cirice’s stomach lurches and he isn’t sure if it’s out of annoyance, anxiety, or nausea. 

“You think I’m the kinda person to just sit around _feeling sorry for myself_?”

“Cirice, I love you. You know I do.” Vincent’s brow twitches when Cirice rolls his eyes, but he pushes on. “But yeah, you kind of have an inclination toward self pity.”

The hollow tapping stops. Cirice slowly lowers his hands from the bottle and flattens them on the table. 

“Okay, so yeah, maybe I am kind of a sadsack. Boo-hoo, _I suck._ I’ll give you that one.” He swirls the bottle around by his ear, frowning. “I still made up my mind.” 

“If you’re so sure, why’d you have to drink all that wine to tell me about it.”

It’s said like a statement. A _gotcha_. As if this wasn’t the natural conclusion to walking on eggshells for as long as Cirice could recall. 

“Hey, at least I have the decency to bring it up directly instead of letting it fester.” He tongues at a sore that’s forming on the inside of his cheek from all his chewing. “Even if I am a coward about it,” Cirice snorts and takes a drink, and another, and then another, sitting up straight and tipping his head back as he upends the bottle. 

After a brief moment of staring down the bottle, he looks Vincent in the eye, his own blown wide. 

“You shouldn’ta come here.”

It’s getting too hot – he’s practically boiling. He needs to get out before he drowns or cooks alive or maybe both. Resting his forehead on the cold countertop just to chase away the dizzy feverish feeling, Cirice retreats back in on himself. Legs crossed, arms crossed, shoulders folded in. 

“Kind of short notice, don’t you think? Where do you expect me to go?”

“Stay with one of your _friends_ ,” Cirice says bitterly. “I know you got so-o-o many. You never shut up about ‘em. Least one of them has a couch, I bet.”

He knows Vincent’s friends are pretty much single-serving; good for a plug or a party, but not very good for staying with while you get back on your feet. His stomach feels like it’s trying to eat itself. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Drown in your fucking guilt.

“You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vincent says, matter of factly. 

Cirice snaps back up to attention, almost swaying completely off of his seat.

“I have never been more clear headed in my life.” 

  
  


After that initial conversation, Vincent puts up much less of a fight than he thought he would, though Cirice did acquiesce when it came to letting him stay that same night. It was a rough one, leaving him tossing and turning, unable to sleep at the thought of Vincent out there on the couch just beyond the locked door while Cirice stayed in _their_ bedroom, with all _their_ things. 

Maybe both of them were sick of it and waiting for it to end, but didn’t want to admit it. Waiting for the other to blink first. 

In two days time, Vincent was packed and gone, having managed to find someone willing to take him in. Cirice doesn’t know who. He doesn’t ask, and tries not to think too hard about it. All he really wanted to focus on was keeping an eye on Vincent, albeit distantly, just to make sure none of his own belongings wound up getting “accidentally” packed away. The last thing he needed was to realize a week later that his favorite CDs were gone, or that shirt he really liked and that Vincent sometimes slept in was missing. 

There’s no arguing. There aren’t even words, at least not openly. Vincent’s avoiding his presence and furiously typing on his phone often enough for Cirice to get the hint to keep a wide berth. Not like there was much to say or do at that point, even though Cirice repeatedly found himself _wanting_ to say or do something. Anything. But the words don’t come. He could feel his pulse beating in his throat the entire time he watched Vincent and his friend load bags of his things into the back of the friend's car from the balcony. 

Surviving the next few days alone in the apartment was easier than he thought it’d be. Peaceful, even. It gave him plenty of time to look back at what the hell he had even been doing. His memory of the past couple years was simultaneously too clear and intense, and too ambiguous to really make anything out. All it was was a long and shapeless blur of constant anxiety and uncertainty, with the occasional bright spot or two that only served to make his throat clench tighter. Like the time they got lost in the city and wound up at that used bookstore, or all those trips to the beach where Vincent without fail always came home beet red in the face and shoulders. 

Part of him couldn’t stop thinking about how simple it was – there should have been more of a fight. It should have been harder. More screaming, more theatrics, something to justify not getting it over with sooner.

_‘So easy to get rid of somebody, leaving more than enough time to patch up holes punched in walls, patch up holes punched in you.’_

Cirice shakes his head as if he were trying to shake the thoughts out of his skull. 

_‘Where did that come from? What an awful thing to wish for. You piece of shit.’_

The church so graciously left the meeting schedule open for that week to give new members enough time to get their affairs sorted. Not that there was much to get sorted aside from shoving everything into boxes and trash bags; they had people to handle the rest. 

He's seated on the carpet with his back to the bedroom closet and his favorite coat folded up protectively in his lap, having saved the most obnoxious task for last. Every other article of clothing he owned was strewn in front of him to be divided into Keep and Trash piles. There wasn’t any use keeping things he didn’t _really_ like. No more ugly or uncomfortable “seasonal attire” kept only out of necessity, not when the church provided seasonally appropriate uniforms for the hotter and colder months. 

Hands trembling and suddenly overcome with another wave of emotion, he figures he’s held it together well enough to allow himself a bit of a temper tantrum. Just to work some frustration out, he yells wordlessly and throws himself back onto the floor, stomping one of his feet. His downstairs neighbor bangs back. 

“Sorry!”

With his palms pressing hard against his eyes, he pieces together that Vincent probably didn't put up much of a fight about leaving because he already had something else lined up. Rolling over to lay on his stomach, he shoves those happy little memories into a box of their own in the back of his mind. No time for that. Not when he has actual boxes to worry about. 

The rug is scratchy on his cheek and offers no cushioning from the hard floor beneath it; not at all comfortable, but lying down and playing dead was much more preferable to continuing to go through the motions. Maybe if he stayed down a little longer, everything else would eventually go away and leave him alone. Wouldn’t that be nice. 

  
  


Several hours later, Cirice is startled from an uneasy sleep by a harsh banging sound somewhere in the apartment. Disoriented, it takes him a while for his heart to stop pounding and his brain to start working well enough to realize that he was on his bedroom floor. Crawling over to where he’d left his phone, he flips it over and checks the time. 

8:45am… Was he supposed to be doing something? 

The banging starts up again. 

“Oh, shit!” 

Scrambling to get up, he almost trips over his own feet multiple times in his hurry to get the door. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry–” He’s already repeating as he flings the door open, greeted by the sight of a small, stern looking ghoulette flanked by several other ghouls nearly twice her size. Her fist is still raised, poised for another round of knocking. 

“Hey,” he says breathlessly. 

_“...Hi.”_ She lowers her hand. “Forget we were coming?” 

Cirice bristles, but gives her a smile anyway. 

“Course not! How could I?”

She puts her hands on her hips and scrutinizes Cirice’s face. He probably looks like a mess - bad sleep, no time to shower, still wearing his clothes from yesterday. Carpet lines on the side of his face. 

Without much fanfare, the ghoulette, presumably some type of foreman, gestures for the larger ghouls to get to work lifting boxes and whatever fixtures weren’t bolted down or didn’t come with the apartment. They carry them down the flight of stairs and out of sight. Cirice leans out his front door to see similar sights at a few other apartments; ghouls and ghoulettes and some particularly fit Siblings carrying stacks of boxes and garbage bags stuffed with clothing into a handful of vans and trucks lined up in the complex parking lot. 

“Umm. Can I get you guys a soda or something?” 

The ghouls, arms already loaded with boxes and bags, look amongst each other, expressions unreadable behind the masks. One by one, they begin shaking their heads with a variety of polite declinations. Of course not. They weren’t here for _socializing_ , they were probably on the clock, or whatever! Besides, how would they even hold them with their hands full? 

“Ooh! Yeah, me!” 

At the sound of his refrigerator door opening, he looks over his shoulder at the ghoulette already digging around. Cirice sighs, a faint smile on his lips. 

_‘This might as well happen.’_

“Hey, throw me one too while you’re in there, yeah?”

  
  


The ride over is uneventful at best, boring at worst. The rest of his things that he fell asleep before packing were hastily shoved into a trash bag of their own and thrown in with everything else in an indiscriminate pile. He has to peek over the broad shoulders of the ghoul sitting up front to see which streets they’re driving down and how near they are to the church. In an effort to still his hands from trembling, he tightens them around the lukewarm soda can he brought along for the drive – the foreman had quickly worked her way through the remaining seven cans in his fridge while Cirice slowly sipped at his one. Crowded into the back cabin of the truck loaded with all of his worldly possessions, one of the ghouls squished up next to him gives him a nudge. Or he thinks it was a nudge. It could very well be the movement of the vehicle on unsteady roads. 

“You okay?”

Oh. Maybe it was a nudge after all.

The ghoul’s voice is deep and raspy, but with a surprising soft spoken gentleness to it that he wouldn’t have expected from somebody with such an intimidating appearance. ( _‘Is that insensitive? Am I stereotyping?’_ ) If Cirice is remembering correctly, this is the one that had been eerily silent all afternoon. 

“I’m… Yeah, I’m okay.”

The words come easily, and with them comes an immense sense of relief. The ghoul seems pleased enough with the answer, leaving Cirice to spend the rest of the ride staring intently down the opening of the soda can clutched in his hands. The aluminum bends in under his fingertips.

  
  


The housing blocks of the church grounds don't look all that different from the apartment complex; just a little more tastefully decorated. Easier on the eyes. No more puke-green bathroom tile or scratchy, lumpy couches or scuffed floorboards. Thank ~~God~~ Whoever. 

When he’s not busy carrying in the lighter bags and boxes, he’s scrambling around trying not to get stepped on or tripped over. From the looks of it, these ghouls were near fully grown, but definitely not _old_. Not by a long shot. It’s a strange sight, watching a pack of demons move his furniture for him while he stood uselessly by with half a warm soda. The foreman sat perched on the fridge with the last remaining can, her spaded tail flicking back and forth. Cirice once heard a rumor that the only way to tell the difference between a ghoul summoned from Hell and a ghoul created by ritual was the presence of a tail. Something tells him it’d be rude to ask. 

“What's the matter? Never seen a ghoul before?” 

The ghoulette chugs the last of her soda and crunches the can flat between her hands, the same way she’d done with all the others. 

“Not this close up.”

Nodding, she passes the aluminum disc back to him. Not knowing what else to do, Cirice takes it and places it gently on the counter, as if it were a gift. Together, they watch the last of his things get brought in and placed on top of the pile in his living room. 

“Welp, get used to it!” Effortlessly, she hops off the fridge and lands delicately on the balls of her feet. Evidently done with their work, the ghouls make their way back to the Sibling leaning against the truck they’d driven over in. The ghoulette watches them go, already barking orders and directions in a language that Cirice can’t place. It sounded like insect chittering and rusted metal grinding, making him wince and bare his teeth. Hopefully the ghoulette didn’t see. _Get used to it_ , she says. 

Looking at everything piled up on the floor, he notices that there isn’t all that much to be put away. It definitely looked like more when it was in the apartment. With a cold, sinking feeling like a stone in his gut, he realizes that his paperwork probably still says that the quarters were meant for _two_ people to share, not one.

On her way out, the ghoulette gives him a couple of way-too-hard pats on the back, nearly knocking the breath out of him. “Welcome to the family, kiddo.”

Warmth blooms in his chest, easily melting whatever jagged shards of ice had formed there. Even if it is a joke, he can’t help but smile uncontrollably. He laughs, ducking his head down to hide behind his drink. Even after she leaves and the door is closed behind her, he still laughs breathily to himself.

When everything is said and done, he’s left alone. Cirice stands in the doorway of his slightly too spacious home and hugs himself. Looking at the bags and boxes on boxes on boxes, he lets out a long sigh, releasing the tension from his shoulders and neck. He claps his hands and then rubs them together to ease the sting.

“Well, you piece of shit, you'd better get to work.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we having fun yet?


	8. Erosion

After some additional training and a brief probationary period of shadowing a long-suffering older Sister, Cirice was deemed fit to be turned loose on the ministry offices. There wasn’t much to it. Shuffling papers from one room to another didn’t require too much brain power, and after a while his assigned tasks became second nature. No, most of his time and effort went into practicing his deep breathing while on the phone and trying to get anything productive done over email. Sometimes a curveball would be thrown his way in the form of a dramatically penned sticky note on top of a stack of documents or a curt email filled with attachments, along with instructions on what needed doing. Even proofreading and editing sermons, and occasionally assisting in a ritual here and there, became just another thing in the to-do pile. 

Granted, he had never participated in a _true_ ritual led by the Papa himself, and his roles in minor rituals were relatively small -- almost nonexistent, actually. As it turned out, the title of “Father” had no real authority behind it, no matter how good it sounded tacked in front of a name. Any truly important tasks were reserved for bishops and cardinals.

Work kept him fairly occupied, but never overwhelmed. He’d heard rumors about how unruly and wild ghouls could get, but the ones he worked with were fairly calm and mild mannered. An unfortunate stereotype, most likely. Ghouls are an incredibly important demographic of the church’s population, and not to mention a major part of their pseudo-religion as a whole. Human clergy members could stand to be a little more understanding. Cirice makes a mental note to email the Community Outreach Center about sensitivity training. Not like there’d be a huge turnout at any event that requires people to get their heads _fully_ out of their asses, but it was worth a try. Who knows, maybe Cirice was being too pessimistic about the whole thing. 

Thirty minutes into convincing yet another vlogger that _no_ , he _cannot_ come in and “have a little look around” outside of operating hours, and he _certainly_ cannot bring along a Toy Center brand spirit board to perform some shameful mockery of a ritual, his phone buzzes twice in his pocket. Anxiety surges in his gut. 

“Please hold,” he says cheerily, already mashing his thumb down on the button before the man on the other end can get so much as a word in edgewise. Cirice leans back in his chair until he hears something in his spine crack and groans. 

It was always like this when his phone went off, or he noticed any little red alert bubbles. It started out mundanely enough, after he left. A missed call from Vincent. A voicemail. A text, or a DM. All following the same theme; when are you going to be done with this? When are you going to admit you fucked up? When will you stop throwing a tantrum and come home? 

When he attempted to call Vincent on his behavior, he was met with nothing but accusations, false equivalencies, and excuses, all couched in empty rhetoric and leaving Cirice feeling drained and zombie-like for days after each confrontation. It was stupid of him to think he could reason his way out of this situation in the first place. Eventually Cirice resigned to calling him “a fucking dumbass” and leaving it at that, abruptly hanging up and never picking up again. 

He then had to disconnect his voicemail inbox after waking up one morning to find it completely full -- an action that was first met with displeasure from his employer over his lack of professionalism, and then concern when he’d sheepishly explained himself.

Blocking didn’t do much to deter Vincent, with the copious amount of burner number apps and the ease of creating endless new email addresses and social media accounts, and feeding into it certainly never helped any. Ultimately he decided to change his number altogether. He deemed it unnecessary to let anyone from back home know about it. For how hardheaded he could be, Vincent had a bit of a way with words and Cirice could _easily_ see him convincing or lying his way into getting into contact by way of an old mutual friend. Either that or their ex-mutual friends were stupid enough to not see anything wrong or suspicious with the scenario. (There he goes making judgements about people again.) 

Unable to stomach the alerts for unread messages and friend requests, or seeing a familiar face or username in the “suggested for you” category that popped up on every networking website, Cirice followed the number change with abandoning every online account he'd previously inhabited. He then deactivated the accounts altogether when he found that he wasn’t any worse off at all for not using them. 

At first, he’d tried reaching out to and speaking consistently with past friends – people he’d gone to school with, worked with, gone out to parties with – just to have some sort of anchor point. A soft place to fall, so to speak. Few of them wanted anything to do with him. The ones that did kept conversation short and stilted, rarely ever venturing past surface level pleasantries. It was a small town and he knew people talked. He wasn’t sure exactly what Vincent had been telling or showing them. He didn’t bother to ask. Cirice figures that Vincent took “I’m not coming back home” to heart, quickly making it just as inhospitable there as it started out as over here. 

Serves him right for only crawling back to his sorely neglected social life once he got lonely and scared. 

_‘If you like the cathedral so much, you can rot there.’_

Cirice had no worries about Vincent coming _to_ the cathedral grounds to try anything. He’d never been physically violent – a fact that Cirice called him on (mocked him for?) numerous times during heated arguments – but he still requested that any unaffiliated visitors be either vetted beforehand or turned away altogether. Just in case. Seeing a grainy 40 pixel profile picture was enough to make him sick with anxiety and pent up anger. He couldn’t imagine what it would do to him in real life.

Screen facing away from him, Cirice tightens his grip on his phone until he hears something creak ominously. He takes a deep, calming breath through his nose and flips it over, quickly tapping open his messages. 

The notification says _Lisa From HR._

Relief crashes over him like a wave. Like always, he feels a little foolish for being afraid of an unread text. He reads and then rereads her invitation to come to hang out in the garden after work, if only to make sure he wasn't misreading something, types out a quick reply ( _“Sounds good. I’m in.”_ ) and pockets his phone before any passing higher-ups could see. He knew that when he made the transition over that there was no way to completely block out the party culture of the Second Cathedral, but at the very least, he was glad that people _listened_ should he say “no”. Many workplace acquaintances, he knew, made an effort to _not_ invite him anywhere if they knew there were going to be more than a dozen or so people in any given area. The thought brings a fond smile to his face. The blinking green light on his work phone catches his eye, reminding him of his previous conflict. He hits the button beside it again, fingers trembling so violently that he almost presses the disconnect button instead.

“Thanks for holding. Where were we?”

_“I promised my subscribers–”_

He grins, crossing his ankle over his knee and coiling the outdated phone wire around his fingers.

“Oh yeah! Absolutely not.”

  
  


It’s already nearing nightfall by the time he’s set free from the too-cold office. Cirice hops down the last four steps of the building and takes a deep breath once he reaches the bottom. 

Absently, he undoes the little button at the back of his clerical collar and tugs out the white plastic tab from inside to shove in his back pocket. The clergy dress code wasn’t as strict as he thought it’d be, but it still required at least _some_ semblance of professionalism. If you asked Cirice, he’d tell you that the Papa only required a certain look because he thought that it was cool. With the collar loosened, he’s free to pull a long blue cord out from beneath the stiff, starchy fabric. Time in the office could be passed fairly easily by simply sneaking some earbuds, especially now that his hair was getting long enough to cover his ears. It was getting to be somewhat of a bad habit, actually – he found himself keeping them playing at a semi-constant dull hum, no matter what was happening around him. Conversations and workplace events often passed him by in favor of the same handful of playlists he’d been listening to for the last decade or so. He rolls the earbuds up around his fingers and shoves the bundle into the breast pocket of his shirt.

It was warm enough now, but what about later? Should he stop off at his house to get his coat? Would he even be around long enough to get cold in the first place? He was kind of tired, too. Maybe he should cancel and go to bed early. The thought was certainly appealing, but perhaps it would be better to tough it out and at least say hi. Not like the garden was all that far away. What could it hurt?  
  


The garden, as it turns out, was empty. For a moment Cirice thinks that he was set up for some kind of lame joke until he notices the muffled voices and dim lights deep in the trees bordering the church grounds. Should have known that it would be code for the woods. It was common knowledge that if anyone was caught messing around with the garden, Papa would have them strung up by the ankles. Possibly flayed. He wasn’t exactly sure why; this particular garden wasn’t used for food, and it’s not like Papa ever went in there, or was even all that interested in its upkeep anyway. At least not that he could see. 

Cirice takes the stone path through the garden, hopping from one stepping stone to the next, and jumps the short wooden fence separating the carefully tended flowers from the overgrowth, trudging around until he gets to the hidden footpath beyond the first layer of trees. The path takes him down a slight hill and deeper into the trees, curving softly and ultimately opening like a river mouth to a hidden clearing. 

Sitting around on fallen logs or flat areas cleared of scrub brush is a group of about fifteen clergy members, illuminated softly by a few store-bought lanterns or hanging glass bottles with LED candles inside. Music plays from somebody’s phone and cheap bluetooth speakers, loud enough to be heard but not enough to drown out the quiet chatter. He scans the area until his eyes hit a familiar mop of faded pink hair.

“I don’t get why you creeps insist on hanging around in the woods when we have a perfectly good banquet hall that nobody ever uses.”

Lisa From HR looks up and over her shoulder at him and waves with her pinky finger, the rest of them occupied with bringing a plastic red cup to her lips. 

“I thought you liked the woods.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, checking out the array of bottles on a rickety picnic table before settling on a plastic bottle of cheap semi-fruit-flavored vodka. It’s already open and there's a few drinks worth missing, but he’ll live. He doesn't bother trying to mix a drink with the gathering's limited resources. Only screws off the cap and has a straight shot from the bottle, no longer shuddering at the taste or the strange way it seems to coat his mouth with cotton. Gradually his slightly prickly mood eases, shoulders lowering with waning tension. He doesn’t know much, but he knows it always does him some good to file the edges down – makes him fun, makes him agreeable. Better to get along with. 

Cirice fights off the growing urge to put his earbuds back in and instead scans the treeline while waiting for Lisa to finish her prior conversation. Something about yet another busybody sending fake cease and desist letters again and threatening to get the authorities involved. It doesn’t seem like the deacon from the legal department is putting too much stock into it, judging by the derisive tone and the whiny, nasally voice used to quote the letters. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the deacon says with an air of authority. “We have a right to practice our religion too, don’t we?”

“Mmm, I don’t think that law extends to sacrifi–”

“Well they don’t need to know about that part!” 

Oh, _this_ old conversation again. Emeritus the First’s most well known sermon is all about ritual sacrifice! So well known, in fact, that his brothers even incorporate it into services of their own. Even if they no longer utilized sacrifice in the same way that they did during the “dark ages”, it was still an important part of the practice, as well as their history. Feigning ignorance or attempting secrecy about it bordered on useless. Cirice rolls his eyes, and gets to people watching instead of contemplating legal issues that neither concern nor interest him. Watching people is more entertaining than hearing them, after all.

There's a young guy who looks no older than eighteen – probably an intern or even a brand new follower, judging by his lack of a proper uniform – trying and failing to hit on a masked Brother approximately ten years out of his age range and thirty miles out of his league. He has to give the guy props for at least humoring the kid before giving him that fatal childlike pat on the head and hair ruffle. Cirice winces. _‘Tough luck, man.’_

A cluster of similarly aged Siblings is crouched at the edge of the clearing doing… something. Some kind of game? Most of the younger members of the flock tended to be somewhat socially awkward, but ultimately harmless. They typically kept to themselves, preferring to form packs with whoever else attended their introductory lessons and was of a similar age. Still, a little nagging voice in the back of his mind compels him to walk over and make sure they aren’t up to anything too– 

“How about you?” Lisa asks, prodding him in the arm. 

Cirice’s attention snaps back to her. He points to himself. 

“ _Me?_ ” 

“Who else would I be talking to?” 

With a quick glance over Lisa’s shoulder, Cirice realizes that the deacon has since wandered off and joined a different conversation, leaving her looking up at him expectantly. 

“What _about_ me?”

She gives him an exaggerated stern look, brows furrowed and head tilted, but there’s no real annoyance behind it.

“You okay? You don’t seem like yourself.” 

His eyelids are heavy, and his back kind of hurts, but otherwise he feels… No, there’s still that underlying baseline of anxiety that makes his pulse thrum uncomfortably at what feels like every moment. He wonders sometimes if it’s visible under his skin, in the pulse point of his throat.

“Workin’ on it!” 

In a “cheers” motion, Cirice raises the plastic bottle he is now obviously bogarting, which earns him an incredulous look. Lisa watches him take a drink and screw the lid back on, playfully scoffing _“asshole”_ under her breath. Mouth full, Cirice hums a few notes in her direction. 

“I _asked_ how work was. Anything fun happen?”

He tries to think back, but it all sort of runs together by the time he hits Wednesday evening. Answer emails, file invoices, make purchases, ignore the looming, mildly hostile presence that tainted his everyday activities. Wait. Trying not to smile, Cirice lets his head fall back with a groan. 

“That fucking guy called again! I think he was hoping for someone else to pick up this time…”

Lisa laughs. The snort at the end of her laugh shatters Cirice's attempts to keep his face neutral.

“Aww, let him vlog!” 

“No! Father Roy specifically told me not to let him come in, and if you think I’m gonna do _anything_ to piss _that_ guy off,” he trails off, pointing an accusatory finger at Lisa. 

“Okay, okay! I just don’t see what the big deal is. More publicity for us, right? That’s what we want.”

Cirice shrugs, wrinkling his nose and making a face like he’s thinking hard about the idea.

“I dunno. Being associated with some nerd doing fake devil rituals with a spirit board is kinda lame. Shouldn’t we also pay attention to the _quality_ of our publicity?”

“How about a whole _bunch_ of nerds doing _real_ devil rituals?”

“Point taken,” he mutters, taking another swig. He lets it sit in his mouth until the various bites and scars inside his mouth start to burn. 

At this point, it was their normal. Show up, do work, go home, do it all again. Break up the monotony by meeting up and getting shitfaced. Same shit, different day, it would seem, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The silence doesn’t trigger any more anxiety than it usually did, and was definitely nothing like his time at the apartments.

It was kind of funny. He'd never really been a big fan of work or routines when he was younger. He’d always swore he’d never get a 9 to 5 that enforced a dress code and involved learning a filing system, but here he was! Surrounded by people, talking with people, and sometimes enjoying himself, even! At some point he must’ve realized that work and study was necessary if he didn't want to go insane from tedium and try to gnaw his way through the wrought iron bars of the front gate. Cirice had a pretty shaky grasp on the concept of mental and emotional stability, but he knew that keeping busy was supposed to be good for it, as long as you don’t push too hard. 

Which reminds him. 

“Oh god, dude, Papa is _on one_ lately.”

“How do you mean?” 

“Just… Usually the things we look over are short, right? Easy to cut down to a couple pages, or they're pretty dry and straightforward. Simple enough to edit. But lately, he’s been coming out with these long, rambling speeches and _none_ of us can figure out a good way to condense them down without losing all the topics he’s highlighted as _super important_ ,” Cirice says with the best air quotes he can manage with a bottle in hand. 

Lisa hums, sipping her drink. 

“How bad?”

“Like, _a whole stack of papers and most of ‘em are covered in green_ bad.”

She hisses through her teeth in sympathy. 

“Ouch. He kinda does that though, I heard. Like, gets in these moods. Is he acting any different?”

“I… wouldn't know. I don’t see him.” 

“Really,” she says skeptically. 

“Really! I’ve been here for ages and I swear I’ve only seen him a handful of times. And once was at my consecration ritual, so that doesn’t even really count.” 

_‘And not counting that other time’,_ his brain helpfully supplies. Warmth rushes to his face and he bristles a little at the memory, like it was something he shouldn't have seen. Was he allowed to see a superior without paint? He wouldn’t dare to go out without wearing it if it was that serious, right? It seemed like he had never, _ever_ caught so much as a passing glimpse of a bishop, cardinal or even a deacon without their signature eye makeup and funny lipstick, but a Papa… That had to be considered blasphemous or something. Or whatever their equivalent to blasphemy was. Right? 

“That’s so weird!” Lisa exclaims, her eyes widening. “How do you even, like… do work?” 

Staring blankly ahead for a beat, Cirice puts his hand to his mouth in thought. He never really thought all that hard about it before. Most of what he did was just flitting in and out of back rooms and up and down floors, shuffling paperwork from one folder to another. Sometimes instructing ghouls as to where they ought to be, as per Papa’s meticulously written instructions. Surely you were supposed to actually _see_ your boss pretty frequently, instead of occasionally catching glimpses of him just as he rounds a corner and vanishes from sight like a phantom haunting the ministry. The Papa certainly _seemed_ like a reasonable man, but that was usually a bad sign in an authority figure. Reasonable people always had a way of getting you to do whatever they wanted while making you think it was for your own good. Maybe he should be thankful about not having his superior breathing down his neck all the time. 

“Mostly he just leaves us sticky notes?” He says it like a question, voice rising in pitch toward the end. “It’s simple stuff. If you fuck up bad enough, he’ll come out and scream at you, though. Happened to the guy next to me once. ”

Seeing Lisa’s look of disbelief, Cirice rolls his eyes. “It’s true! That’s how I saw him one of those times.”

Thankfully, Cirice has never had to deal with Papa directly. He doesn’t know if he could handle that level of pressure. Out of nervous habit, he drinks deeper than he normally would, finishing off the bottle in a few gulps. How the hell did he get through all of that _already_? The thought made him even antsier than usual. He’d been trying to be good ever since arriving at the cathedral village; limiting his intake, slowly tapering down the amount he was “allowed” to drink at home and at outings, practicing mindfulness exercises that probably worked better for something like nail biting or touching your face too much. 

Oblivious to his internal struggle, Lisa continues.

“Wow, he actually _screamed_ at him? I know he _looks_ scary, but I always heard he was more reserved.”

“ _I_ don’t think he looks all that s–” 

A loud pop and a shriek cuts him off, along with everyone else at the gathering. For what feels like minutes, there’s nothing but silence before people are rushing over to the source of the noise – those younger Siblings sitting at the edge of the clearing, playing with sticks. Cirice raises his eyebrow at Lisa, but her attention is obviously elsewhere. Peering over the shoulders of onlookers, he can finally make out what they were getting up to.

Carved in the dirt is a summoning circle. 

Unnerving as it is, even Cirice can easily tell that it’s the work of an amateur despite never having studied sigillum in his life. The characters are sloppy and some of them backwards. Lines are crooked or jagged and unable to join properly at the edges. One of the girls is crying, though most likely out of shock; it doesn’t look like she was hurt when whatever energy that gathered finally popped. An ugly scorch mark is scarred into the dirt.

The seniormost clergy member among them – a bishop, judging by the cassock and its coloration – is angrily questioning the group, but none of them seem to be paying him any mind. They look surprised that they even got a result, good, bad, or otherwise. From what little he can pick out from the overlapping voices, he manages to piece together that the not-crying girl wanted to see if she could talk to some dead grunge vocalist, so they copied a ritual they found on the internet. Cirice rolls his eyes. If even a high ranking clergy member had difficulty manifesting spirits, what makes a fledgling Sibling think they would fare any better? He chalks it up to delusions of grandeur. Maybe toy store spirit boards weren’t such a big deal after all. He'd have to cut Vlog Guy some slack when he inevitably called back for round four. 

“Man… that kinda sucks. Think they’re gonna get in trouble?” Lisa asks.

The bishop kicks away the sticks and stones of their little makeshift altar and fills in the scratched lines with dirt, shooing away any remaining observers. A few well-meaning Siblings seem to be shushing and calming the crying girl while her friends are scolded by the bishop and what looks to be his entourage of would-be ghouls. 

“I dunno. Doubt it.” Cirice firmly places the now empty bottle on the picnic table, just to give the illusion of finality. “Ruined the mood, that’s for damn sure.”

The conversation sort of fizzles out naturally from there, save for the occasional anecdote from work or smarmy comment about the people around them. Cirice fiddles with the edge of his collar, if only for something to do with his hands. Even though he knew he would regret it, he hadn’t bothered buying a fresh pack of cigarettes before work. Great for his physical health, probably, especially considering the fact that he could easily work his way through half a pack a day if left to his own devices for too long, but his emotions always suffered for it. Thankfully, the alcohol did a fantastic job of dissolving the tension Cirice carried in his shoulders. 

“What about you, mama hen? Where’s your flock?”

Lisa wasn’t a proper Elder, not yet, but her personality and saintlike patience did earn her a small group of newer Sisters constantly nipping at her heels nearly everywhere she went, giggling and trailing after her like little chicks. Cirice was sort of surprised that they hadn’t stalked her all the way to the clearing. She must have come over straight after work, same as him. 

“Oh, you know, the usual,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Lizzie snuck her boyfriend into the girl’s only dorms, again _._ He actually fell _in_ the window. Woke the whole floor up."

Cirice cuts off his laugh, making a strange choked sound in the process.

“How long you think it’ll take them to realize there’s not even any rules against late night visitors?” Cirice asks, letting himself laugh openly when Lisa raises both her hands in exasperation. 

“Right? No one cares as long as he’s not creeping around! That’s the point! Like, why not just move into the mixed gender dorms if he’s gonna be in your room all the time anyway?”

“Maybe it’s more fun that way,” he says. Lisa quirks an eyebrow. “It’s like you’re getting away with something. Breaking the rules, saying _fuck you_ to The Man.” 

Groaning at the mocking voice Cirice puts on, Lisa mutters something about young people being so stupid into her cup, as if she wasn’t barely out of her twenties herself. He huffs amusedly, but still can’t seem to shake the knot of anxiety writhing and twisting in his stomach. After a few minutes and some failed attempts at rekindling the conversation, he falls back on sinking into his own thoughts. Lisa keeps the conversation afloat well enough on her own, needing only a few affirmations from Cirice sprinkled in every so often to keep her momentum. He always told himself that he was never one for long stretches of silence, but knows it’s a flat out lie. Plenty of quiet and alone time was _vital_ , but he couldn’t bear it somehow. Social gatherings always felt like such a performance to him; be funny, be pretty, be interesting, or don’t be there at all. Something in his body language must show his unease – probably the way he’s been absently swaying his weight from foot to foot, arms around his middle, now that he thinks about it – because Lisa looks over at him and quirks an eyebrow. 

“Think I’m gonna get going. Get some sleep, maybe.” 

“Aww, really?”

“Yeah. I’ll see ya. Thanks for inviting me. I had fun, actually.” 

He doesn’t wait for her response, hyperaware of the disappointment in her voice and keen on getting home to be alone. With a halfhearted wave, Cirice beelines through the clusters of people milling about and back toward where he came. The earbuds are pulled from his shirt pocket and reconnected to his phone. He decides to suffer the walk only half-distracted and leaves one earbud hanging out, the song he settles for playing considerably lower than he’d normally prefer. Even in a half-drunk haze, he knew it was kind of stupid to wander through the woods unable to hear his surroundings, no matter how safe the woods were or how well he knew the way back. A pleasant buzz had been slowly making itself known under his skin back at the clearing, but the feeling spiked considerably once he got moving. Cirice steps carefully over protruding roots, keeping conscious of his struggling motor skills while he finds his way back onto the path. 

A loud pop shakes him out of his thoughts, followed by a fizzing sound in his left ear. He twists the headphone jack where it connects to his phone, hoping to reconnect whichever wire had snapped. 

“Dollar store piece of–”

He mumbles quietly to himself, trying to contort the wire into a shape that would allow the disconnected ends of the wire to make contact again before giving up and swapping the left earbud for the right. Dull music in one ear, the constant chirping of crickets and rustling foliage in the other. Cirice slows his pace as he skips around from song to song and playlist to playlist, knowing full well that he would spend more of his walk trying to _find_ something to listen to than actually listening.

When he settles on a song that he doesn't like but isn't exactly tired of, he looks back up, only to realize that he isn’t sure where he is. All the trees look the same. The path beneath his feet is gone. At first he thinks that he stupidly walked in the wrong direction, got turned around somewhere… 

But his pace had slowed considerably to make sure he _wouldn't_ wander off the path. He couldn't have walked more than ten or so feet and the path had no sharp turns or odd twists to it; once you made it up the hill, it was a straight shot back to the fence at the back of the garden. Even if you went too far down the path or didn’t walk far _enough_ before climbing the hill, you would still hit the edge of the property. You’d just pop up from behind the library, or maybe find yourself at the edge of the parking lot. There was no way to get entirely turned around. The woods weren’t even that thick. 

The bitter taste of bile bubbles up at the back of his throat. From panic, nausea, the alcohol, he isn’t sure. Cirice sways and staggers, gripping onto a tree for balance, uncaring of the way that the rough surface of the bark bites into his palms. His vision fades, blurring at the edges with the occasional bright spot blooming in the distance before slowly coming back in – it reminded him of a migraine aura, of seeing stars after standing up too fast, complete with dizziness and disorientation.

A pathetic whine rises from the back of his throat. His knees buckle underneath him and, not knowing what else to do, he crouches in the underbrush beneath the looming trees, forehead pressed hard against his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his folded legs. Static and metallic screeching fills his brain, a grating, scraping sensation inside of his skull. Too loud, too much, the sensation sending painful spikes through his head as if he were chewing on tinfoil and not his own tongue. He rips the earbud out in an effort to get away from the sound. Belatedly, Cirice realizes that the sound was just his breath and blood roaring in his ears. 

All at once, everything snaps back into place and he finds himself standing in the middle of the darkened woods. His phone sits forgotten in his hand with his thumb hovering over the play button of a song he hasn’t heard in years. The earbud he had torn out so forcefully just seconds before is now safely back in place. The path is right back under his feet – how could he have possibly missed it? The crest of the hill and the knee high garden fence are a few yards away at most. His still-hazy but rapidly clearing vision and a smothering shroud of fear are his only remaining afflictions. Cirice sighs a quick prayer and climbs back over the fence, careful not to slip on the mossy stepping stones in his rush to get away. 

He rarely came this way as part of his daily routine. Such a shame. The gardens were gorgeous, especially under the golden afternoon sun, and was so tightly packed that it was difficult for one not in the know to be able to discern one plant from another. Without a keen eye and knowledge of exotic plants and their variants, the vibrant splotches of color that made up the closed flower buds and the delicate shapes of their leaves seemed to melt together like a Sargent painting. 

In the darkness, however, the stretch and blur was so confusing as to be nauseating. Plants and ornamental trees impossibly tall and still growing, spear-like leaves stretching off into the sky. Swirling foliage grates on his senses all at once; the rustle of leaves is deafening, the scents cloying and burning his sinuses. 

The static resurges violently, bringing with it the smell of electricity and the crackling of dry twigs. Something sharp and buzzing, clawing and scraping around the back of his skull. The cracking of twigs becomes the grinding of bone and Cirice has to make the conscious effort to loosen his jaw before his teeth crack and crumble under the pressure. There’s a sudden deafening pop in his inner ear, needlesharp, and the earbud is yanked out with a yelp.

Before he has a chance to become overwhelmed to the point of throwing up, he rushes away from the garden and back onto the main stone path, into the relative safety of lamps and signposts. He leans heavily against a pole, attempting to stifle his hyperventilating with a hand over his mouth. Slowly, the sensations fade. No grinding or crackling, or smell of electricity, or static. Only the chirping of crickets. Muffled voices from distant wandering Siblings. The warm glow of light from occupied buildings and street lamps washes over him. He closes his eyes tight and wills away the shaking in his limbs, taking off down the very well lit pathway leading to the housing blocks.

He chances a look back at the garden. Where he feels there should be something – a monster, a spirit, one of the creatures from late night horror films – he finds nothing. 


	9. 52hz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: vomit, paranoia, illness
> 
> "Other people have real problems" is Cirice's middle name.

The trip home in itself is a hazy half-memory filled with the amorphous shapes of foliage and twigs snapping underfoot. Somehow he’d staggered to the housing block, eventually finding his way up to the correct floor and to his own front door. He’d neglected to lock the front door when he left. He’d also neglected to lock it when he came back, instead heading straight for the kitchen sink to vomit up everything in his stomach. The acrid taste and sting of wine and bile in his mouth and nose brings about another vicious wave of nausea. 

_ ‘...When did I drink wine?’  _

It isn’t long before he has to lean fully on the sink to even keep himself upright, muscles screaming from the strain he’d put them through. Shamefully, he thinks about how often he used to come home and do exactly this. He’d had a good run. Killing himself with guilt and embarrassment could wait until morning -- as of right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care very much about his personal failings, not when he felt like he was going to keel over at any minute. With trembling hands, the sink is thoroughly rinsed and a glass is brought out of the cupboard. The glass knocks against his teeth once or twice as he rinses his mouth and then attempts to get  _ some _ lost fluid back in him. 

He blinks and he’s in his bathroom, at first misplacing himself in the old apartments before his brain shifts to accommodate the lack of puke-green tile and pale pink fixtures. Rational thought is quickly and violently replaced by a sharp, hammering pain that threatens to cave his skull in, tear tracks sticky on his face. The retching brings pain and the pain brings more vomiting, all of it gradually building and building until he can hardly make sense of himself or the passage of time. At some point he realizes that he’d gotten rid of his shirt, hugging himself against the mercifully cold tile and willing the ground to stop spinning so fast. 

It takes several attempts, but once he’s positive that there was nothing left in him to purge, he finally manages to find his way into bed and beneath a thin sheet. A compromise between overheating and shivering with a cold sweat, curled in a ball with his forehead pressed hard to his knees. He smells blood and electricity. A sense of dread and anxiety so strong that his chest ached keeps him from sleeping it off. Somewhere in the distance, there's a constant rattling of glass. His windows? Occasionally he’d stare through the darkness of his room, when he could bear to focus on one thing for more than a second, wide eyes fixed on his unlocked bedroom door. The fear of an intruder or some other unwelcome guest just wasn’t enough to override the full body tremors and aches keeping him anchored firmly to his mattress. 

It didn’t matter. Not really. He knew that, depending on who it was, they’d be able to force the lock anyway. 

Wait.

Hadn’t he changed the locks?

No… No, he didn’t do that part after all. 

And didn’t he move to another complex sometime last autumn? Is that right? 

Thinking for too long on the subject brought a dull, throbbing pain to the right side of his forehead. He tucked his head under the sheet and curled up tighter, ignoring the increase in body heat. How long had it been? The sheets were sweated through and deeply unpleasant on his exposed skin, but there was nothing he could do about it when breathing alone took all the effort he could manage. Shooting nerve pain ran its course through his body seemingly at random, overlaying the full body ache that settled into his bones. 

They might as well have been broken. Splintered and shattered into a million little pieces and digging through his muscle and skin like shrapnel. Shredding himself on pieces of himself from the inside out. The thought makes his now fully emptied stomach lurch and contract. Maybe it would wane some if he could lie straight. Instead, he stays curled up for fear of making the pain worse. The paralyzing feeling of eyes pointed at him from all angles persisted until the room gradually grew lighter with the rising sun. A constant throaty heaving and groaning and weak keening is like sandpaper on his brain. Cirice only realizes that he was the source of the noise when he clutches at the base of his throat and feels the vibrations there. 

Cirice isn’t sure how long the fits of pain and nausea and paranoia go on for. The chills come in waves, chased away by brief periods of unbearable heat, only for those to eventually leave him too. At some point he thinks he might have managed to sleep, or passed out, or else detached from himself in some other way, only coming to consciousness for the sharp spikes and dips in temperature. There was no other way of telling the passage of time in this state, aside from roughly estimating based on how much better or worse he felt. Maybe it didn’t matter. 

As soon as he found that sitting up and moving didn’t blacken his vision and send him collapsing back to the mattress, he slowly made his way back to his bathroom, grabbing a change of clothes almost as an afterthought. It takes three times longer than usual to make it to the bathroom. He has to continuously stop and catch his breath, sometimes crouching in the hallway for fear of blacking out and cracking his head on the tile or the wall. 

The water heated up quicker here, so there wasn’t much time for him to consider curling up in the fetal position on the bath mat. Especially not when curling up in the fetal position  _ inside _ the shower held so much more appeal. Under the steady stream of water, he finds his thoughts slowly coming back to him. Most of them are disjointed or hazy. It’s difficult to think of anything else but the one coherent thought he was able to hang onto – ‘I’m going to die’. ‘I’m going to die,’ repeated endlessly for what could have been hours, days, weeks, but was most likely minutes. Was he being dramatic? It certainly felt like a possible reality. Like every horrible thing in the world was going to come rushing in at any moment to crush him to death in his bed. 

A cruel, nagging voice prods at him from somewhere in the back of his overheated brain. 

Infants scream and cry at the slightest hint of discomfort because the slightest hint of discomfort is the worst pain they’ve ever felt. The only thing there is to do is get used to it, or cry harder.

Cirice chuckles to himself at the patronizing thought, gasping and wincing when the action puts too much strain on his aching ribs. 

The water helps. The warmth and steam eases the worst of the muscle aches and soreness, while the white noise provided by the stream beating down on the shower walls gives him an additional safety net to fall back into when collecting his thoughts proves to be too difficult. Cirice sits motionless under the stream until it goes lukewarm and he feels somewhat like a person again. 

With the water off, he debates sleeping in the tub rather than going through the hassle of drying off and getting dressed. He leans the side of his head against the shower wall. The coolness of the tile soothes the burning pressure in his skull, if only a little. 

Time jumps ahead without him again. He startles awake, confused and frightened, surrounded by unfamiliar white tile and porcelain. An incessant pounding at his front door mirrors the throbbing behind his eyes while he catches his breath and assesses his surroundings. For a minute, he thought the sound itself was coming from his skull or maybe even his heart and he was about to die for real. With a groan, he climbs out and manages to get himself into his uniform pants, skin already mostly dry from his time spent napping. Or passed out. He isn’t sure which, and he isn’t sure he cares.

  
  


The door creaks open and Cirice squints against the brighter fluorescent lights of the hallway that threaten to white out his vision completely. Outlines and shapes are fuzzy, but as his vision slowly bleeds back in, he’s able to piece together the features of Father Joshua from the office – square, thick framed glasses, closely trimmed beard, his usual expressionlessness replaced by a look of mild aggravation. 

“... Hi?” 

His own voice sounds foreign to him – scratchy, dry, like he ruptured something while puking his guts out last night. Maybe he just needed more water. 

_ “Where the hell have you been?” _

Cirice hisses and stumbles back, pressing the palm of his free hand to his temple. 

“Shit, not so loud,” he mumbles. “What’re you doing here?”

Joshua doesn’t answer his question, but takes his movement away from the door as an invitation to step inside. He doesn’t intrude much more than that. Instead, he hovers silently in the entryway to glare accusingly at Cirice, who was still trying to rub the dancing rainbow lights out of his vision. Joshua crosses his arms and exhales hard through his nose. 

“I’m making sure you aren’t dead.”

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

Instead of lingering in the doorway, Cirice shuffles over to his kitchen to root around in the drawers. There was bound to be something to help this hangover somewhere around here. There’s a soft noise of fabric and the squeak of rubber on linoleum behind Cirice, and he surmises that he was followed into the kitchen.

“I was just really sick yesterday, okay? Don’t be so dramatic.” 

Irritably, Joshua adjusts his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, seeming to analyze Cirice’s every movement and facial twitch. Unwilling to look him in the face, Cirice climbs onto his counter to better reach the higher shelves of his cabinets.

“...Cirice, what day is it today?” 

He pauses in his rummaging to think.

“Saturday, why?” 

He shoves bottles of rubbing alcohol and cough syrup out of his way, reaching far in the back of the cabinet to see if maybe that dusty cardboard box in the corner has what he’s looking for. 

“It’s Monday!” 

Flinching, Cirice knocks the little plastic cough syrup cup out of the cabinet and sends it bouncing across the tile. He doesn’t turn to look at Joshua, but he can feel his eyes tracking his every slow, robotic movement. Shifting down to a quieter yet still authoritative tone, Joshua repeats himself. 

“ _ It’s Monday.  _ This wouldn’t even be this much of an issue if you’d have just called in and let us know you needed time off.”

Cirice sits frozen, balanced on his knees on the counter and up to his elbow in the various boxes and packages crammed into the far corner cabinet above his sink.

“That’s– no, no, I remember it, I went out on Thursday, and then Friday...” 

Dumbfounded, Cirice twists to face Joshua, dropping his hands from where they had drifted to clutch at the sides of his head. Did hangovers always make him feel like his brain was boiling? His eyes dart back and forth between two fixed points somewhere over Joshua’s shoulder, his lips slightly parted in thought. There’s an uncomfortable silence as he and Joshua stare at each other, each searching for any hint of humor or a tell of some sort. Slowly, Cirice climbs off the counter and turns, holding the bottle protectively in front of his chest with both hands.

“Are you messing with me?”

“Oh, so you really _were_ sick,” Joshua says, with just a tiny twinge of concern. The way that Cirice bristles at the implication that he would pretend to get out of work goes unnoticed. “Maybe you should go to the infirmary.”

The suggestion sends a shock of cold through his body. 

“No! No, I’m fine, I just got confused.”

Joshua does not look the least bit convinced, but he ultimately doesn’t push the issue. Cirice is an adult. He can fend for himself. 

“If you say so. Just… Remember to call in next time okay?” 

There’s a hesitant lilt in Joshua’s voice.

“Yeah. I’m sorry, I don’t know how it slipped my mind,” he tries. 

It sounds painfully forced even to his own ears. Joshua quirks an eyebrow at him over the frame of his glasses, tapping his fingers on his crossed arms.

_ ‘He doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m full of shit. Oh god, I’m gonna have to find another job.’ _

“I’ll tell Roxanne that you’re coming in at two instead. _Do not_ let this happen again,” Joshua says, pointing a threatening finger at him.

Cirice sighs loudly, fully prepared to sing the highest of praises in Joshua’s name, only for Joshua to hold up one finger in front of his face. 

“But just this once! In the meantime, you should take something for that headache. And put on a shirt. And button your pants.” 

“Fuck, sorry,” Cirice hisses under his breath, hitching his uniform pants further up his hips, his fingers fumbling at the closure. 

On previous occasions where he had screwed up or embarrassed himself in some ridiculous way or another, Cirice enjoyed entertaining the idea of starting over completely – faking a new name and a new life in a new city. The idea doesn't appeal to him anymore. He’s not sure when that feeling stopped. Maybe it was because he’d already come this far; there was no point to backing out over something as insignificant as being irrideemably stupid. Thankfully, he wasn’t  _ indecent _ , exactly, and this was far from his most embarrassing of personal little malfunctions. Not really a great look in front of the person that was effectively his manager, who he would have to continue reporting to every day for the foreseeable future. It was much better than waking up to a maintenance ghoul spraying him with a garden hose on the cathedral lawn, but neither were a particularly stellar look.

“So hey, Joshua, does that mean it’s my turn to ask you something?” 

Joshua purses his lips, seemingly taken by surprise at Cirice’s rare usage of his full name.

“I  _ guess _ .”

“How did you know where I live?” 

“Oh. Is that all? Papa pulled your file.” 

His fingers curl tightly around the bottle of ibuprofen as if it were a lifeline. 

“... What.” 

_ ‘File. He pulled my file. Papa keeps  _ _ files _ _. Okay, no, relax, there’s files on everybody that works here. In case of emergency! Like this! This could have been an emergency. It wasn’t! But it could have been. ...But it wasn’t.’ _

The mental runaround solved one crisis – no one is out there keeping tabs on him, specifically – but brings light to a new issue entirely. 

Cirice had been kind of hoping that he could skate by unnoticed for the duration of his employment, however long that may be, by being perfectly mediocre and blending in with the walls during office hours. A total nonentity, only becoming present at the occasional smallish social gathering. And now his existence was known by somebody outside of his tiny corner of the administration department and a few select members of the community resource center. Normally, this wouldn’t be much of a problem. Normally, this would have nothing to do with Papa.

_ ‘Papa, who now knows you exist, in the same general vicinity as him, because he had to pull your file, because you missed multiple days of work without notice.’  _

The prickle of cold sweat breaks out on the back of his neck. 

“Well,  _ yeah. _ He’s not gonna let someone go nearly a week unaccounted for without so much as a wellness check.”

The implication of a check-in being standard procedure is only somewhat reassuring – can’t have any mysterious disappearances attached to the family business, Cirice supposes. Still, his hackles are raised and he can feel the urge to start snapping at Joshua rising by the second. 

“You could have… Why didn’t you call me? Do it over the phone?” 

“We  _ did _ call you.” Joshua uncrosses his arms, shoves his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Several times.” 

“Oh.”

“I’ll leave you to get dressed now. Make sure you thank Zaffre for covering your desk while you were, um... Sick.”

“Oh,” Cirice repeats. “Yeah. I will.”

Joshua shows himself out of the apartment, Cirice following him to the door. Not that he really needed to. It just felt like the right thing to do. And anyway, it was better than standing dumbly in his kitchen to have another inner crisis. Joshua says his goodbyes out in the hallway and Cirice watches him go, all the way down the hall and through the stairway. Almost as if in a daze, Cirice finishes up his morning routine, albeit distracted by the discomfort of having lost so much time and with a few extra steps. 

Hair, teeth, clothes, shoes. Stuff a bunch of packets of ibuprofen and dissolvable antacid powder in his shirt pocket. Hunt down his earbuds and phone. 

He fully expected a flood of texts and missed calls, but he instead finds the home screen of his phone so littered with a rainbow of artifacts and dead pixels that he can hardly even make out his own background image. 

“ _ Fuck. _ ”

The phone is smacked against his palm a few times as if trying to shake the debris off of the screen boy force. He didn’t remember dropping or throwing it at any point, not that it really mattered. There were a lot of things he couldn’t remember. His stomach twists again, heart pounding in his throat. 

It only flickers weakly back to life after Cirice resorts to the tried and true method of turning it off and on again, mumbling to himself all the while. The phone itself seemed to function as normal after another firm smack or three, but the display was still glitchy and marred with black splotches or random bands of color. It was only a matter of remembering where his call and texting apps were and navigating those safely until he could see about getting it fixed or replaced. 

Before he leaves, he digs his old mp3 player out of his desk drawer. There probably wasn’t going to be anything too good on it – the last time he’d synced it was in high school – but it was better than nothing. It goes in his pocket along with the packets. 

  
  
  


No matter how many times Cirice reminded himself of Joshua’s words, it just didn’t seem to take hold. He was so sure that he would walk into the office and have to answer to his frustrated coworkers and a  _ furious  _ Papa. The reality of it all was that he himself didn’t seem to be missed. All that his brief absence seemed to result in was mild inconvenience for those that got stuck answering his calls and pushing around his paperwork. Why had he panicked so hard when Joshua came to check on him? People checked up on each other all the time around here, didn’t they? That’s what they were expected to do for each other. Aside from a coffee purchased out of gratitude for Zaffre followed by thank yous and apologies, some “welcome back”s and questions as to whether he felt better, business continued as usual.

A week passes. 

And another one.

And then another one. 

His absence is quickly forgotten, in favor of more pressing matters. Matters such as keeping his breathing even and hands steady when it felt like every force in the universe was fighting to get on his last nerve. Perhaps it’s stress, but he finds his head and stomach hurting much more often. Packets of dissolvable antacid powder and extra strength ibuprofen are bought in bulk and take up permanent residence in his cabinets, his bag, his shirt pocket. His teeth aren’t faring any better. On several occasions, he’d woken with tiny pebbles and shards of chipped bone stuck to the inside of his lip or found himself crunching down on something hard and crumbly in the middle of his lunch break. It was never painful and never went to the tender nerves within the center of the tooth, but it was disturbing nonetheless. Jagged points often caught on the insides of his lips and cheeks. One more thing to look into but never follow through on. 

Cirice is in the middle of tonguing at the newest fracture in his first upper left molar when a set of keys jingles a few inches from his ear. Startled, he jumps away from the noise and looks wide eyed at the priestess who sits two desks over. She smiles and jingles the keys at him again. He sighs and snatches the offending keychain with a petulant string of words mumbled under his breath. 

Being a father of the church isn’t  _ all  _ spent being sequestered away proofreading speeches and ordering increasingly flashy candle displays and glorified Halloween decorations. It also meant manning the confessional booths. The Papas of eras past weren’t exactly keen on the idea of begging forgiveness for sins. Instead they found the setup better used for private council, so that ghouls and Siblings alike might gain outside perspective on their personal grievances from a trusted superior. Yet another activity stolen from the Christians and warped to better suit the needs of the congregation. 

“Why do  _ we _ have to pick up the slack just because other people don’t know how to use their heads?”

“It isn’t my fault Anne changed the schedule. Don’t be shitty,” the priestess says, countering his snippy tone with one of her own.

“Whatever,” he sighs, dragging out the “r”. She’s right. There’s no point getting aggressive over being moved to a busier time slot, though he  _ did _ sorely miss the early morning shift. Hardly anyone would come in at those hours, leaving Cirice with the perfect opportunity to sit quietly in a little box all by himself and enjoy the chill in the air and the eerie stillness that fell over the cathedral village.

Most of his shifts nowadays were spent staring ahead at the partition, tastefully adorned with a filigree Grucifix, listening to all manner of woes and worries and trying hard not to place their voice or silhouette. Sometimes, he’d get so irritated by the inconsequentiality of it all that on several occasions he found himself wanting to put his fist through that flimsy little crepe paper screen and shake whoever was on the other side by the collar. Cirice tries hard not to connect any dots there. 

At his desk, Cirice fiddles with the keychain as if to stall for a few precious extra seconds. The familiar small brass key – old, kind of tarnished – along with a newer looking Grucifix charm and a worn label, all on a convenient coiled stretch bracelet in fluorescent green. “Why do we have to lock the confessionals again?” 

An eyebrow is raised in his direction.

“ _ You know why _ .” 

“...I thought that was a rumor.” 

The priestess says nothing – a snort, a quiet derisive laugh, and a wave as she turns and presumably goes back to her own desk. With a sigh and an eye roll at their dismissal, Cirice stands from his chair and stretches until something in his spine cracks. 

_ ‘Might as well get this shitshow over with.’ _

  
  


Cirice sits in the cramped wooden box, staring blankly ahead at the ornately carved decorations surrounding the privacy screen, flicking back and forth between the minimal amount of apps and games on his phone. A text is sent back to the ghoul chauffeur, confirming a movie night at his quarters. 

The first time he was ever invited over, it took only minutes to get worked up over being in an enclosed space with another person for the first time in ages. Anxiety quickly made way to guilt and stomach pains; the chauffeur was  _ so  _ nice, really he was, and there was never a reason to feel uneasy around him aside from a little bit of plain old social anxiety, but Cirice still found himself drafting excuses as to why he had to go home and mentally mapping out any exits.  _ ‘Keep it together,’ _ he told himself.  _ ‘If you don’t get a grip,  _ _ you’ll _ _ be the one making the night awkward.’  _ Cirice repeated the general idea to himself over and over for the better portion of half an hour, leading him to miss the setup for the movie that the chauffeur had picked out entirely. Some kind of crime drama from the early 2000s. Weird. Cirice distinctly remembered him being more of a romcom type of guy. 

This was supposed to be a relaxed night with… what? A friend? Casual acquaintance? Either way, letting his nerves govern his behavior so severely was a sure way to ruin the evening, so he focused instead on forcing any unwanted or uncomfortable thought from his head. Slowly but surely, he felt the tension in the cramped living room ease. Once he warmed up to the interaction and proximity, he began making more and more comments and remarks toward the characters on screen, which the chauffeur surprisingly did not join in on. 

“Oh, are you– sorry, I’ll stop if you're trying to watch–” 

The chauffeur said nothing, but fidgeted with a metal bracelet around his wrist. He’d never seen the ghoul look so nervous before.

“No, it’s okay. I’m not really invested,” he said chuckling awkwardly. After a brief period of silence, save for the actors chewing the scenery in the background, he adds, “Mayrose said it was good.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Without much further thought, Cirice digs through the popcorn bowl on the coffee table for the partially popped kernels at the bottom. He snorts loudly when a man on screen is called a rat in an exaggerated Long Island accent and is promptly riddled with bullet holes.

“So-o-o,” the chauffeur began, tapping his pointed claws on his thighs. Cirice turned to look at him – he looked like he was about to pass out. “Have you... spoken to her lately?”

“Not really. I say hi and stop in when I have to pass by the center, but we’ve never hung out or anything.” 

The chauffeur nodded, the motion slow but over exaggerated. 

“I see.”

“...Why do you ask?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the chauffeur, who had his head down, still playing with his bracelet. 

  
  


Cirice tilts his head back until it hits the back wall of the confessional. It turned out fine. Of course it did. He rarely had reason to stop in to the center nowadays, but when he did, it wasn’t unusual to find the chauffeur perched on the corner of Mayrose’s desk, playfully ribbing her about something or another. Honestly, he couldn’t tell whether the chauffeur had ever plucked up the courage to tell her anything directly, but at least they didn’t hate each other and weren’t visibly awkward. He sighs and laughs at himself, and his unfailing ability to negatively distort things. 

The warmth from the sun and the scent of old wood is mostly comforting, somewhat easing his irritation at being asked to waste his time sitting here in the first place. Shifting until he’s doubled over with his elbows braced on his knee and his chin in his hands, Cirice lazily watches little specks of dust drifting around in the sunbeams that break through the gaps in the wood. Midday shifts have been surprisingly slow lately. Maybe it had something to do with the weather? No time for confession when you could be spending your free time down by the lake or enjoying the library’s air conditioning. It seemed that the only interesting stories shared over post-work drinks came from those who worked late nights and weekends. 

If he worked later at night, he might at least get the occasional solicitation. The idea makes his skin crawl in revulsion but  _ fuck, _ anything to bust up the monotony. There was nothing worse than sitting around and waiting for something that might never– 

The door on the other half of the booth creaks open and clicks shut, the telltale sound of the latch rattling making Cirice sit bolt upright. 

“Good afternoon.”

There’s a hesitant pause. The sound of fabric shuffling and the creaking of the bench.

“Good afternoon, Father.”

Their voice is soft, timid. First confession? A new Sibling, maybe? If that’s the case, it’d most likely be yet another wayward Sibling seeking guidance through the untread territory that is embracing sin and earthly pleasures. This should be easy. What was his line again?

“Satan our infernal majesty opens His heart to we who sin. Let Him hear your sins that you may receive His embrace.”

Yeah, close enough. Hopefully they don't notice the ever present bored, monotonous drawl of his voice. The Sibling on the other side doesn’t respond to his prompting. He tries again.

“Is this your first time in one of these things?”

“Oh!” They squeak. “Sorry… I don’t know what I’m supposed to… I was just curious.”

“I see.” Cirice leans back in his seat, crossing an ankle over his knee and propping an elbow on the little ledge running the length of the bottom of the privacy screen. He can sort of see their silhouette but pointedly ignores any defining features. His voice might have been a little too stern so he huffs and begins again. “Don’t worry about the sinning part too much; it’s just a formality. Most people use these things as sort of an advice hotline nowadays. So, do you need help with something?” 

Another long pause, followed by more uncomfortable shuffling. Cirice rolls his eyes and immediately feels guilty for it. 

“Well,” they begin. There's a clicking sound. Are they biting their nails? Oh,  _ here we go.  _ Raising his eyebrows, Cirice inclines his head toward the partition, a tight smile forming on his lips. 

“Yes?”

“When I first joined… maybe I dove in headfirst without really thinking about it. I’m not so sure about this anymore.”

And here Cirice had been anticipating the typical boy and/or girl problems. Patiently, he waits for them to gather their thoughts and continue. 

“Everyone here is so serious about things. It feels like they all already know something I don’t. I hardly even understand what Papa’s sermons are about most of the time.” Cirice winces at that. Too verbose? Too abstract? A failing somewhere along the drafting process? He’ll mention it at their next meeting. The Sibling continues on, albeit hesitantly. “And everyone here already knows everything anyway, and I’m not even sure if I believe in any of it in the first place! Um. That’s all… I guess.” They trail off from there and the clicking sound continues. 

Cirice blinks a few times. He isn’t sure when, but at some point he’d gone back to resting his chin in his hand, only realizing it when he sat upright again. That’s  _ all _ ? Where does he even start with this one? 

“Uhhh.” 

_ ‘Great. Fantastic work. You inspire such confidence.’ _

Cirice clears his throat. 

“Tell me, what brought you here in the first place?” 

“I saw the ritual videos, the ones online. And some scripture on someone’s blog. I just thought it was nice.” 

“And if you’re here right now, that means you went through your rites of confirmation.” 

The Sibling makes a quiet sound of affirmation. 

“Was it…” affirming enriching rewarding enlightening “...enjoyable?”

They laugh softly.

“I liked it, yes.” 

_ ‘Then what’s your problem?’ _

“And do you like the stories? The music? How about the, uh, morals?”

“Yes! Very much.”

“Then that’s enough.” 

The clicking sound stops and the leftover silence is suffocating.

“What do you mean? I just told you I wasn’t sure if I believed in– I don’t even think the devil is real! Maybe I just wanted to be part of something...” 

“You  _ are _ part of something. And anyway, it’s not healthy to surround yourself with the exact same opinions all the time, probably,” Cirice gestures with both hands in a ‘stop’ motion, knowing fully well that they can’t see him any clearer than as a vague black blob behind a screen. It helps him articulate his point to himself, at least. “You don’t have to stay here if you really don’t want to. No one can force you to, and I’m pretty sure Papa would send out a hit squad on anyone who’d even try... but I’m pretty sure you’re already handling this better than most other newcomers.”

“...Really,” they mumble. Flat and unimpressed. Maybe lost in thought. 

It was difficult for him to tell without the aid of facial expressions and body language. Cirice uncrosses his legs and recrosses them in the other direction, rubbing his forehead. 

“Look. There’s  _ something _ weird going on around here – you’ve seen it, right? There’s  _ ghouls _ running around in broad daylight. Teenagers talk to ghosts at parties. But do you think there’s a guy with a little fork living underground, waiting to punish you forever if you do something bad? ‘Cause I don’t. I’m willing to bet most of the people here don’t either. Not even Papa, not in that way at least. If you wanna think critically as you come across new ideas or perspectives, that’s a good thing! That’s  _ exactly _ the kind of thing we’re trying to teach here. We  _ need _ skeptics.” 

The Sibling is silent for a long time and for an agonizing, stomach churning moment, Cirice is positive he’s overstepped some sort of boundary. The purpose of these conversations is more to lead the confessor into drawing their own conclusions, only offering the occasional stock supportive quote or inspirational line – he’s isn’t sure he’s technically allowed to dominate a conversation like this. Not his field of expertise and far out of his paygrade. 

“I’ll… Alright. I’ll think about that. Thank you for your time, Father.”

“...Yeah.” 

That was odd. Normally nobody even bothered to say thank you. He isn’t quite sure what else to say.

And just like that, they're gone. The thin papery fabric of the partition and the delicate wooden carvings surrounding it seem to glow with outside light as the other door is opened. Cirice listens to the footsteps retreating over the grass and back to the walkway. 

Well, that was… refreshing. It’s not often that somebody comes along seeking guidance on such vulnerable terms. Here’s hoping the remainder of the day’s confessions, should there be any more, follow along in the same vein. 

_ ‘Don’t get your hopes up.’  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this was a fun one. I wish the Hangover From Hell scene lasted a little longer, but I feel like I got my point across decently enough. Cirice is kind of snotty, isn’t he. Ugh. 
> 
> And another appearance from the chauffeur (and Mayrose, kinda)! I ended up liking those two more than i thought i would, given that they were only supposed to be one-off background characters. Let’s pretend that this isn’t the case with every single other character in this story.


	10. Prodrome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you grind your teeth?

Eventually the time comes for Cirice to lock up and get back to the administration building. His back cracks when he stands up straight after exiting the cramped wooden box. Thankfully, the church was well staffed enough that he hardly had to worry about being called in for confessional duty too often. Unless someone called out or successfully tricked him into covering their shift, it would continue to be only a twice monthly affair. His fingers twitch for the sleeves of the coat he doesn’t even wear anymore. 

If he tried hard enough, he could force himself to feel like he’d achieved an honest day’s work. Maybe even had an epiphany of his own somewhere in there. But then the rest of the day slowly started filtering back in; affairs, petty theft, property damage… Cirice isn’t any better than anyone else, of course he isn’t, but having to hear _so much_ at once exhausted him. Maybe that was why nobody was ever scheduled more than a few times every month? And then there were all those people who still somehow don’t understand that just because the church celebrates certain so-called sins, that doesn’t mean they can go around acting like creeps. He groans, trudging over the grass and ignoring the cobblestone walkway entirely, taking his time getting back to the main office building. 

He’d fantasized once or twice about leaving the confessor’s side locked and taking a nice, long nap in his side of the booth instead of working, but made sure not to think about it for very long. If someone were determined enough, they’d pound on the sides and possibly even knock the booth over before reporting him to the higher clergy. 

Cirice lets the heavy door fall shut noisily behind him, drawing a few glances his way. 

“How was it today?”

The ghoulette at the front desk is answered with a loud, frustrated groaning noise, which she returns by chiding him in ghoulish and halfheartedly swiping at his arm. Cirice laughs as he leans over her desk, flipping through some papers tacked to a corkboard. 

“...It wasn’t actually all that bad, honestly.” 

“Thought so,” she answers distractedly, never pausing her writing in a small flowery notebook. 

Looks like Melanie’s on night shift. Which one was Melanie again? The one with the eyebrow piercing, right? Purple hair?

After a brief quiet moment, Cirice speaks up again.

“Hey, Annie?”

“What do you want now?” 

She doesn’t look up.

“Should we be worried about the amount of people who don’t get the whole, like, sin thing?” 

When it becomes apparent that Cirice isn’t in the mood for their typical back and forth needling, she drops the act. Her eyes scrunch up where he presumes her brow is furrowed beneath her mask. 

“How do you mean?”

It takes him a solid minute or two to plan out his next words in a way that doesn’t sound patronizing or condescending. Fiddling with the coiled keychain looped around his wrist, Cirice releases a breath. For a second, Annie wasn’t even sure he was going to respond at all. 

“Like the whole, _sloth isn’t bad, lust is natural,_ ” he fidgets more as he speaks, imitating as close a voice to Papa’s as he can. 

“Are you saying that Papa’s sermons on inherent sin are inadequate?” Annie asks suspiciously. 

“No!” His head snaps over to meet Annie’s eye, but she’s already back to writing in her day planner. She hums again. Jots something down, reaches for a different colored pen and writes some more. “No. It’s fine. I’m just saying. Maybe some people are stupid.” 

She snorts and giggles but makes like she’s going to jab him with her pen. 

“Why are you stabbing me? I said _maybe some_ !” Taking a step back and out of her range, Cirice continues. “I don’t understand what’s so elusive about _wanting things is okay but it doesn’t mean you get to hurt others to get it,_ ” he mumbles, again with the Papa voice. It doesn’t sound a thing like him, save for a close approximation of his accent. Wrong timbre, wrong phrasing. 

“Be nice!” 

“I’m just saying! He does that one, what, maybe once a year? Maybe it’s not sticking the way it used to.”

Eyeing him up and down, Annie folds her arms on her desk and leans forward. 

“Did something happen?” 

Cirice thinks back to the last few people to come in. Questions and misconceptions that might seem like common knowledge to one, but a complete mystery to another. 

“...No.”

Sighing, Annie clasps her hands in front of her lips where the mouth of her mask peaks. She closes her planner and pushes her hands further up underneath her mask to rub her eyes. 

“Well… If you really feel that way, you could write up a formal request for a revision.”

Leaning up against Annie’s desk, Cirice wrings his hands. Papa wasn’t too keen on anyone implying that his sermons and speeches weren’t up to snuff, directly or indirectly. That wasn’t to say he was totally averse to criticism; it was a welcome part of the process. He simply wanted to be damn sure that everything brought to him was a legitimate concern and not just vapid nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, or any number of other ulterior motives one may have. And that meant formal write ups, explanations, annotations and examples. After a too-long moment of silence, Annie shrugs at him. 

“Just a suggestion.”

A good one, at that.

It wasn’t exactly widespread, but Cirice noticed more than a few newer acolytes ignoring older sermons or topics of discussion in favor of those that were a little less… hellfire and brimstone. There were some that you could get away with not listening to, of course. That whole spiel about pride that most people assumed was a passive-aggressive jab at Emeritus Nihil, for one. It was well written and entertaining enough, but paled in comparison to Papa’s long winded and exuberant speeches on the life and times of the first recorded Satanic priests, up to and including their sexual escapades. Maybe some of the older stuff could use some refreshing and updating. Just to keep things interesting for a wider demographic. 

Idly, he examines his fingernails, rubbing a faded but stubborn ink stain above the nail of his left middle finger. 

“...I’ll think about it,” Cirice mumbles. 

  
  
  


Honestly, he swore he was going to knock the thing out that week, but he’d abruptly lost all will to finish somewhere around the four page mark. The half typed proposal for a review sits forgotten on the desktop of Cirice’s work computer, and the copied file remains lost on the thumb drive he told himself he’d look through and work on later.

Perhaps he didn’t care all that much about it to begin with and was just trying to find something to blame his frustrations on. Instead, most of his energy goes to the customary gatherings of the working population and maintaining the status quo of the office. His heart isn’t in it, but he tries. 

People notice. 

He’d been taking a break at a table in one of the unused conference rooms; over time it had become somewhat of a makeshift break room for those too lazy or strapped for time to make the trip upstairs to the real one, with the big fridge and the fancy coffee maker. Lately, it was seeing a lot more use from him than usual. There were several instances throughout his shifts where Cirice needed to duck out and just sit for a few minutes. Sometimes he would doodle aimlessly on a sticky note or the back of an invoice, or simply put his head down, all while listening to nothing but the soft hum of electricity. 

Today, however, the universe seemed to say differently. 

Father Andrew stands between Cirice and the coffee maker wedged in the corner of the small counter. The light blinks at him repeatedly, as if ticking away the seconds wasted just standing there, mug in hand, trying desperately to cut in and ask for Andrew to _move already._

“An–”

“–en I went to the supermarket outside of town, you know the one? It’s over on Carson. Sure we have the gardens here, but you know how it is when tomatoes aren’t in–” 

“I need–” 

“ –ut then when I got home I realized they didn’t even put them in the bag, I was li–” 

Cirice didn’t _need_ coffee. He was a little groggy, sure, but he could have easily put the mug down and gone back to his desk. It was the _principle_. Had Andrew somehow missed the mug in his hand, or conveniently looked away each time Cirice opened his mouth to interject? Was he ignoring him? Whatever the reason, Andrew steamrolls his way right through. What is the point of this discussion? 

_‘Why are you telling me this?’_

Cirice hardly ever involved himself in conversations with people he _liked_ . Being trapped by a near-stranger prattling on about a topic Cirice lost track of long ago felt like torture. In an attempt to mitigate the feeling, Cirice falls back on nodding and responding with the occasional affirmation at random points. _Uh-huh. Right. Yeah. Is that so?_ Faster, faster, power through and cut corners until it’s all over. What time was it anyway? He felt like it'd been an eternity. Andrew’s voice drones and makes it difficult for Cirice to even focus on what’s being said to him anymore. 

_‘Why are you telling me this?’_

Somewhere around the third circle-back to the part about the tomatoes, Andrew’s voice fades out to a dull drone. Cirice’s fingers twitch, then clench tightly around the mug. He imagines it shattering into a million jagged pieces. He imagines those jagged little pieces piercing through the meat of his hands until they poke out through the other sides. He pointedly ignores the sense of satisfaction and release that the mental image gives him. The dull drone shifts into a ringing in his ears that slowly grows more and more intense the more Andrew talks himself in circles. He feels his face twitch — not a smile, but a bearing of teeth. 

He’s shivering. When Cirice speaks, the ringing comes to a sudden stop. 

“Andrew. I don’t fucking care.”

Freezing mid-sentence, Andrew’s expression melts into one of indignation at the sight of Cirice’s own mildly amused one – eyebrows raised, eyes wide, pleasant smile. 

“ _Excuse me_ –”

“Yeah,” Cirice huffs, almost a laugh. “Excuse you.” 

He shoves past Andrew and pulls out the coffee pot. He doesn’t even want it; all he wants is to get back to his desk and away from this situation. Again, it’s the _principle_. When he turns, steaming mug of coffee in hand, he catches eyes with the other clergy members seated around the plastic table, all with varying levels of discomfort apparent in their expressions and body language. After a quick head tilt, Cirice turns on his heel and walks off out of the room, aware of the eyes on his back until he’s fully out of eyeline. Though he’s in the hall, he still hears the quiet “sheesh” somebody mutters under their breath. The sound causes a spike of anger shooting through his chest, making him feel it all the way to his fingertips. 

_‘Yeah, yeah, what the fuck ever. Windbag.’_

His limbs feel simultaneously weightless and as heavy as lead. Cirice only realizes that he’s shaking when steaming coffee splashes over the side of his mug and down the back of his hand. It leaves an angry red splotch on his skin. 

Wait. 

Cirice stops dead in the middle of the hallway. 

_‘Why did I do that?’_

He’d gone to the clinic to see about his constant headaches and difficulties sleeping. His hope was that by fixing his sleep schedule and the persistent pounding in his skull, he might fix the persistent shitty attitude. All they did was give him a bottle of naproxen and several lectures on limiting eye straining activities and eating and drinking enough during the day before sending him on his way. He still prefers the individual ibuprofen packets. No matter what they were actually for, he wasn’t about to pull out a fluorescent orange pill bottle at work or have loose, unlabeled pills rolling around on his person. 

Cirice tears open the paper and foil packet and shakes the two tablets into his mouth, crunching them up and hunting around his desk for his water bottle. At the too-familiar feeling of eyes, Cirice glances up to catch half of a masked face staring at him over the top of his PC monitor. He groans and purses his lips. Brushing it off, he takes a swig of water to wash away the bitter taste as he looks over the contents of this next invoice. 

_‘Who the hell bought seventeen yards of fabric made of goat hair?’_

A special order, maybe? He didn’t recall seeing anything about _that_ in the email about supplies for the next ritual… Is it for aesthetics? Cirice can’t imagine Papa’s ghouls allowing themselves to be dressed up in anything that hot and scratchy for any amount of time, no matter how important the occasion. Spoiled little bastards. And anyway, this isn’t the dark ages; they had more efficient means of flagellation and mortifying the flesh. More than likely, the fabric would be used to fashion some sort of decoration or perhaps find its use as a ritual component, though he can’t imagine for what exact purpose. 

Cirice’s eyes flick up to that mask still hovering behind his monitor. 

“Hi, Zaffre.”

The mask slowly and smoothly sinks out of view behind the monitor, only to reappear below it and to the left. Zaffre folds their arms on their own desk, which was situated head to head with Cirice’s. They rest their head on their arms and lean in close, eyes narrowing. If their mouth were visible, Cirice was certain he would have seen a wide, toothy grin. What the fuck is everybody’s problem around here? He didn’t exactly expect the church to attract the most _normal_ of crowds, but come _on._

“Sleeping bad?”

That gets Cirice’s full attention – or a tiny bit more of it, anyway. He’s still clicking around spreadsheets and emails, albeit much more slowly. It’s not like it would have taken much perceptiveness to figure that one out. For the past several days, Cirice had been rolling in awfully close to the start of his shift instead of his usual thirty minutes early. Irritable and lethargic, shirt wrinkled and face unshaven, all red and purple ringed around the eyes. _No fucking shit,_ he’s sleeping bad. 

“...Yeah.”

Zaffre hums and nods sagely. “What's your deal?”

Cirice blinks at them once, twice, and then promptly goes back to his aggressive typing and grumbling about the candle budget, of all things. He hopes Zaffre gets the hint and leaves him be. 

Wait– no. Zaffre is his… well, they’re not _friends,_ he doesn’t think. Zaffre’s never even asked Cirice anything that could be construed as a personal question before. He liked humoring them on their weird ideas of what could count as “food”, often backing them up when a coworker claimed (incorrectly) that their packed lunches were “terrifying, to say the least”, and they thought it was funny when Cirice went off on long analytical tangents about whatever movie he’d watched that night. They weren’t _friends_ , but they were _friendly_. The corners of his eyes prickle a little, a familiar heavy sensation settling in his chest. 

When he looks up, Zaffre is still looking at him expectantly, if a little more impatient. 

“I just… I’ve been having these weird dreams lately. They wake me up sometimes. That’s all.” 

Zaffre takes it, but there’s a hesitance there. Their tail flicks and swishes behind them and he’s reminded somewhat of an apprehensive cat. Cirice slides his hands off the keyboard and tries not to feel any worse over not telling the whole truth, lacing and unlacing his fingers in front of his chest, bending and folding his hands out of nervous habit. 

He hazily remembers Lisa saying something about auras. It didn’t make any sense, at least not to him, but there was something about the concept of a person putting out some kind of signal to others that stuck with him. Lately, he’d been feeling like there was some sort of invisible wall blocking him off from other people. It wasn’t physical, not at all, but he could still feel it somehow in the back of his mind and in the tension in his shoulders. 

At night, he swears he hears rattling and banging on his windows just before he’s totally asleep. When he has nightmares about stubborn ink stains on his hands smearing black all over everything in his apartment, he wakes up with the feeling of eyes on him. When he goes to parties and kisses strangers and regrets it later, there's a third person in there with them, always standing to his left. Is that the real him? 

He shakes the thought from his head. That doesn’t even make any sense. He’s tired is all. 

When he looks up again, Zaffre is back in their own personal space bubble and scribbling notes along the margins of their paperwork. 

People notice.

It becomes a common occurrence to catch Cirice in the makeshift break room doing a breathing exercise he googled with trembling hands, face flushed and blood rushing loud in his ears. Sometimes during his shift, he abruptly has to stop and close his eyes, a hand to his temple, face screwed up in pain. He likes the break room for that. Oftentimes he’ll wind up carrying his stacks of paper and his personal laptop in there just to be able to get some work done without worrying about anyone seeing. It’s always worse when people are watching.

“Have you thought about seeing someone about those headaches?”

At the end of his shift, he crumples up a stack of empty paper and foil packets. When it gets too much, he swallows his pride and gets his prescription filled and refilled and refilled again. 

Maybe it’s stress. Workplace stress, making him snippy and always bitter and a little bit frightened. Maybe that's why his head hurts and that’s why he’s always grinding his teeth, uncaring of the way they chip and crack. It feels like they never get any closer to the gumline, as odd as it may sound. With the amount of little bits of bone he’s spitting out, there should be nothing left by now. He must be imagining things again. Teeth don’t keep growing like that. 

There’s some kind of dark stain on his left ring finger, starting at the first knuckle and spreading out below the nail bed. A bruise? 

“Maybe you should go home early and get some sleep. You seem sort of out of it.”

The Cirice Maciél Method for coping existed on opposite ends of a spectrum; avoid it entirely, or charge head on with no plan whatsoever, and nowhere in between. He talks to himself a lot more. Sometimes aloud. Most times not. After one too many odd looks from coworkers and neighbors, he reels it in some, focusing on keeping his personal dialogue strictly internal as often as possible. 

_‘I didn't used to talk to myself like this.’_

_‘Everybody talks to themselves. It's nothing special.’_

_‘Yeah, I guess so.’_

One morning, after his shower, he notices a slight discoloration to one of his eyes. All bloodshot and watery like it’s irritated. The pupil is constricted down to a tiny pinpoint while the other stays the same. It doesn’t seem to react to the bathroom light flickering on and off. All it really does is throw off his equilibrium and lead him to grab a pair of sunglasses on his way out to wear for the duration of his shift. 

“You don’t look so good. I think you ought to see a doctor or something.” 

Cirice sits at the foldout table in the break room, spinning something in his fingers. He tilts his hand and lets it drop on the table, savoring the clear _clank_ of object against object before picking it back up and squeezing it in his hand before repeating the whole process over again. The slight weight in the cup of his palm is comforting, the surface perfectly round with no distinct edges to speak of. After a couple minutes of minding their business, the Sibling seated across from him with their cup of coffee finally speaks up. 

“What is that, one of those fidget things or what?”

“Nnno, no, I _found_ this,” he pauses briefly and holds it up to let them see. “It got me thinking.” 

“It’s… it’s a rock.”

As he speaks, he spins the stone that he’d found on the walk over between his fingers. His mouth moves too quickly for his brain to catch up, an entire train of thought spewing out but none of it landing. It isn’t like he wasn’t thinking about what was being said. Maybe he was thinking _too_ much about it, going in circles until his thoughts were interwoven and screwed together and entirely unrecognizable. 

“ –filing all the edges down off something unpleasant, like it’s a shard of glass, all the bad parts get eroded and filed down until it’s something someone actually spends time _searching_ for, it’s something pretty and rare and worth holding onto, it’s better than with all the bad parts but it didn’t _do_ anything bad, it just exists like that and–” 

“...What the hell are you talking about? Are you feeling alright?”

Sitting out in the grass a ways off the path, Cirice scribbles and fusses in his sketchbook, mumbling to himself all the while. He’d been avoiding drawing and painting for weeks, but recently found himself unable to stop – swirls and teeth and mazes in shiny graphite, black marker and eye-searing technicolor paint dominating all of his thoughts and thus also his hands. Deep down he knows that it isn’t anyone’s intention to _upset_ him, that sitting outdoors with pens and tubes of paint scattered in the grass was bound to draw at least some attention. Normally he would be all too pleased to talk a stranger’s ear off about technique and application, but lately any interruptions or prying eyes only served to ramp up the strange combination of emotions making his heart skip beats and hands quiver. 

By the third interruption, Cirice is so on edge that he flinches and groans forcefully, letting the pad of paper fall from its place on his bent legs and causing the ~~invasive~~ curious stranger to jump back in surprise. 

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he snaps, unthinkingly. The expression on the stranger’s face didn't sting, exactly, but Cirice still felt it somewhere under his ribs. What was that, guilt? Shame? For a second he considers lying and telling them that he simply thought they were somebody else, that it was an accident and he didn’t mean it. “I- I’m sorry,” he stammers quietly.

The stranger furrows their eyebrows at him warily, obviously leaning away from him. They mutter something along the lines of “it’s cool, man,” all too unconvincingly and take their leave. Cirice laughs softly to himself as he continues in his sketchbook, face feeling tacky and itchy with partially dried tears. _‘When did those get there?’_ Shaky fingers continue to push and smear graphite, ink, and globs of paint around on the thick paper. When he’s finished for the day and he drags himself home, the stains don’t come off. 

“You really need to get that under control.” 

The Elder in charge of their floor praised him for his work ethic when he informed them that he’d be staying a little late in the afternoon after everyone else went home to get some extra work done. Really, he hadn’t been able to focus all afternoon. The office wasn’t even that loud, but he was too wound up to keep his focus on his assigned tasks, instead taking frequent walks around the office perimeter under the guise of running files to different departments. Now he’s left mostly alone with his nasty thoughts spiraling in his head, but at the very least, now they weren’t competing with the outside noise. 

Halfway through typing up a cordial response to one of the many emails from concerned outsiders, his cell buzzes. The area code says it’s from his hometown. Normally he would ignore it but each time the phone buzzes and jitters a few inches across his desk, it gets harder to resist. Temper flares. The phone is snatched up and he’s already speaking before the call even connects.

“How long are you gonna do this,” Cirice asks flatly. 

The words are hissed through clenched teeth. There’s no response. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“...I don’t hear you saying anything. What’s the matter? Are you gonna answer me? Try and make me feel bad?” 

The idea that maybe it was a friend or family member hadn’t even occurred to him, but he’s already running his mouth, so why the hell not? On the other line is nothing but the staticky sound of shuffling around, headphone mic brushing against skin or clothes, or maybe the phone being passed from one hand to the other. It only spurs him on. If it was a friend or family member, surely they would have interrupted him by now. Who else would be calling him without so much as a warning text? Even his _grandma_ gave him a warning text before video calling him to make him say hi to the cats.

“I know you’re there, Vince, you little shit. Answer me!” 

Despite his goading, all he gets is what could be the sound of a disbelieving chuckle on the other line and the beep of the call disconnecting. Somehow, that’s the worst part. Going in, he fully expected Vincent to pull some sort of shit – make him feel guilty, get aggressive or defensive, _something_ , anything but pointed silence. He thought that venting some frustration might make him feel a little better, but all it’s done is make him feel stupid and childish. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe he’s reading too much into it, assigning more importance to a simple phone call than is really there. 

It could have been anyone – a wrong number, a solicitor. 

A weak, frustrated noise bubbles up from low in his throat and Cirice tosses his already busted phone onto his desk. The cracks in the screen grow by a few millimeters. Shame overtakes all other emotion and Cirice puts his head down, covering himself with his arms as if awaiting an atom bomb. He breathes hard through gritted teeth and when he finally stands, intent on taking a walk around the mostly abandoned office to cool down, he comes face to face with an intern passing through on their way to the stairs. They huff, sounding the tiniest bit amused by his ranting.

“What was _that_ all ab–”

“Mind your fucking business!” 

A spit drop lands on the intern’s cheek.

Cirice imagines punching himself hard in the side of the head. 

His shoulders drop and he watches the intern clean their cheek with the collar of their shirt and doesn’t bother to stick around any longer. 

“Just leave it alone, man,” Cirice sighs, to himself more than anything.

He flicks the switch of his desk lamp and weaves his way through desks to the opposite end of the office. As if he’s got somewhere to be.

All throughout his walk, there’s a constant movement just out of his peripheral vision. It follows him even after he finishes his work for the night, turns out the lights for the floor and slowly makes his way down the front steps of the building. A rat darting across the walkway to its home under the rose bushes, a bird fluttering from branch to branch, unable to get comfortable enough to sing, an insect scurrying to hide in the dark corners of his apartment – no matter how he rationalizes it, he still finds himself flinching and cringing away from something he can never quite get a clear look at. 

When his jitteriness gets to the point where he finds himself flinching at seemingly random intervals during his workday, he’s pulled quietly aside by the well meaning deacon leading that week’s performance review.

“Are you… feeling okay?”

Cirice turns his head away, keeping his suspicious gaze on the man through the corner of his eye. 

“Too much coffee this morning. Makes me twitchy.”

He busies himself by acting like he’s looking for something in his bag, though the deacon can plainly see that there’s hardly anything in there aside from some books and miscellaneous items that seem to have come from the ground outside. As if on cue, Cirice loses his train of thought and stares into the middle distance. He imagines something speeding toward his face – a shadow, a bird, a fist. His eyes snap shut and he twitches on the impact that doesn’t come. 

“Ah... huh,” the deacon mumbles awkwardly. He puts a broad, gentle hand on Cirice’s shoulder and it takes everything in him not to forcefully shrug it off.

“You should visit the infirmary.” 

It might be from the silence of his apartment, or maybe the fact that he had been able to catch a few hours of sleep here and there now that he was off for the weekend, but his head didn’t hurt too much today. He was able to keep track of at least one train of thought. The sense of urgency he somehow didn’t feel before bubbles to the surface and forces him to really scrutinize his reflection after his shower. 

It still hurts to look at things. His pupils never seemed to agree on a size that worked with each other or the surrounding light levels. Bracing himself for the sting, he flicks the bathroom light on. Showering in the dark was so much easier. Less risk of getting disoriented and possibly cracking his skull open that way. Wincing slightly, he takes in the fact that the sclera of his eyes are a cloudy grey, tendrils of pigment moving and shifting like ink dissipating in water. He feels his heart start to pick up its pace and forces himself to take several deep breaths. 

_‘Stay calm. Don’t disconnect.’_

The dull discoloration doesn’t seem to be affecting his vision so much, at least not that he could tell. Probably nothing floating around underneath the weird squishy watery membrane of his eyes to block or otherwise confuse his pupils. Some sort of overabundance of… _something?_ He vaguely remembered seeing an infomercial one time on the buildup of heavy metals in the body on late night TV. Something about a man turning blue from mineral poisoning.

Sighing, he leans in close and tugs at the side of his mouth to examine his teeth. For all their crackling and crumbling, they looked fine...ish. Pointier. They do feel a little more crowded. He counts each tooth with his tongue and finds no abnormality there, save for the fact that he manages to catch himself on a now sharpened point of his first molar, the one right behind the canine. Despite the crowded feeling, his upper incisors are right where he left them and his lower incisors are still just as crooked as they’ve always been. At least his front teeth didn’t get it too bad. That shouldn’t be as comforting as it is. He’s literally falling apart and here he is, relieved that even if he turns into a zombie or something, at least he won’t have to cover his mouth in photos. 

He brings his hands close to his face to smack his palm to his forehead once or twice, the way he does when he wants to force a train of thought to derail. Before they can make contact, he freezes in place. He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to take a few deep breaths. Instead, he curls and uncurls his fingers, slowly lowering them and spreading his fingers apart. 

Underneath all of his nails, the skin is dark. Black, almost, but purple-blue in the light. Like he’d been playing in charcoal, but not quite. He shudders. 

His rapidly spiraling train of anxious thoughts pauses, replaced only by ‘ _when did it get this bad?’_

He turns his hands over to examine his palms. Nothing there, or at least not yet. The dark splotches marring his nail beds seem to be spreading to the other sides of his fingers. Unable to stop himself in the brief period of quiet contemplation, his mind rewinds back to his surprise leave of absence. The way that one thought spiralled over and over in his overworked, overheated brain. He wonders if he really did die.

He feels stupid the second that thought enters his head. This is no dumb horror flick and he was no idiot protagonist. Gently, he pokes and prods at the pads of his fingers, presses down on every nail with varying degrees of intensity. Nothing. The sick, horrified part of his brain had been fearful that the nails would fall _off_ if he so much as bent his fingers wrong. The cold and clinical part of his brain allows him to sigh in relief. 

Discolored eyes flicking up, he makes eye contact with his reflection and takes a deep breath to steel his nerves. He may have gotten off to a rocky start, but now that his common sense found its way back to him, he was going to be _smart_ about this. Cirice isn’t naive or self absorbed enough to think that he can solve this whole thing on his own, but he might as well try getting a grasp on what was going on in the meantime. There exists a way of doing research outside of breaking into haunted houses or harassing spirits. There had to be thousands of books in the church’s possession that detailed whatever disturbing illness or infection was ailing him, and no shortage of doctors or medics or at least people with some sort of infernal medical knowhow. 

But mostly, he just had the internet. 

Dragging himself away from the bathroom sink that found itself supporting his weight yet again, Cirice gets mostly dressed and hunts down his phone. It was somewhere on the living room floor last time he saw it. Or maybe the couch? It was mostly fuzzy, but he distinctly remembered getting frustrated at being bothered – or more accurately, the unpleasant sound and feel of his phone buzzing one or two times too many – and had thrown it somewhere after frantically setting it to _do not disturb_ mode. When was that? This morning? Yesterday? Last week? 

After a few minutes of searching, he manages to find it wedged in between the couch cushions. The upright ones. He only spotted it by chance, his eye catching the glint of his phone’s scratched up silver exterior against the darker upholstery. Briefly, Cirice considers taking up knife throwing, but quickly disregards that thought and files it away for later.

He had originally intended on just learning some medical terminology to better describe his experiences to whoever he manages to see. Honest. But the more articles and pages that Cirice reads through, the more search terms he plugs into his searches. The more terms he plugs into his searches, the more obscure and horrific the medical disorders that pop up. 

Cataracts goes to ichthyosis goes to gangrene goes to necrosis– 

With so many unsettling photos at his blackened fingertips and a lack of a will to drag himself away, it’s hardly surprising when Cirice finds himself spiraling into yet another anxiety attack. It takes several attempts to catch his breath, and he ends up lying on his side on the living room floor, simultaneously too claustrophobic and too exposed to do anything until his breathing and heart rate calm on their own. Even after the wave of terror and nausea pass, he stays down, hands to his face and nails biting at the skin of his cheeks, temples, forehead. 

_‘You should visit the infirmary.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotta stuff happening in this chapter. Does it take place over a week? A month? Two months? Half a year? Who knows! Cirice certainly doesn’t! :)
> 
> That said… Boy, I love side characters. Could you tell? Don’t you love side characters too?


	11. Function Is Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMOAXm94VWo

Phone calls are made and appointments are booked. The process is a bit lengthier than it would be under normal circumstances, but much less of a headache.

First, a call is made to someone on the church grounds, who then refers you to a village medic or to one of the larger medical centers in the neighboring city, depending on what exactly you needed to get looked at. 

There wasn’t any issue with going to the city for more obscure ailments – of course the staff there was familiar and “friendly” with the church behind closed doors – but Cirice would much rather forgo the need to travel outside of the church grounds. The term “village medic” was so much less daunting than the alternative. More charming, too. They probably see all kinds of bizarre shit, anatomy wise. Cirice has seen enough mid-shift ghouls by now to know that he definitely was not having the worst go of it by  _ any _ means. Plus, it was cheaper, and he wasn’t sure if his insurance covered “maybe dying” or “mystery skin and eye disease”. 

The wait until his appointment was mercifully short, but he still considered going in early when the headaches were particularly gruesome. Could he wait? Is it bad enough? Cirice could almost slap himself at the thought, but settles for digging his nails into the side of his face – it was less disruptive that way. His fingertips were ink black. 

_ ‘Bad enough, bad enough, bad enough. When the fuck is it ever going to be bad enough for you?’  _

Still, the nerves brought on by his current situation weigh too heavy on his mind. He finds himself turning to a drink here and there, snuck in his coffee thermos, or openly at the church grounds. Higher-ups weren't prudes about someone having a midday drink out by the garden, so long as they weren't disturbing anybody around them. With his current appearance being what it was, the “not disturbing anyone” part was a little out the window. Cirice winces to himself. 

Anger was an inept cover for fear. If the venom wasn’t directed at himself, it was at everybody else. Better to internalize it. It wasn’t a good or sustainable plan by any means, but at least the inevitable explosion and emotional fallout made things more interesting. 

The hangovers probably weren’t helping things, either. 

Cirice stands in his bathroom, blearily finger combing his hair and contemplating whether or not it was worth it to shave that morning when his finger catches on something stuck in his hair. A dull, throbbing pain reverberates through his skull and fogs his vision momentarily. He grits out a curse and leans in, gingerly threading his fingers through his hair until he finds whatever it was. 

There’s a small black point under his skin, a few inches above his ear. 

Cirice jerks back from the mirror, tumbling and almost falling on his ass in the process. 

His immediate thought is that he’s still drunk from last night. Hallucinating, even. Maybe he fell and hit his head. 

As if he were trying to hide from his reflection, he stays crouched down against the cabinet and tucks his knees under his chin. Trying to reason everything away was probably the reason he looked and felt this bad to begin with. There’s no point in trying to keep up the charade. Shakily, he climbs back to his feet and sits himself on the edge of the sink. He leans as close to the mirror as he can get and parts his hair at about where he assumes the little black lump was. Sure enough, it’s still there. He slides his hand up, intending to lift away his hair and get a clearer look, only for his fingers to run into  _ another  _ strange protrusion. A low groan rumbles from the back of his throat. Along with it comes a feeling that he can only think to describe as pure dread. His chest feels like it’s caving in, ribs constricting his heart far too tightly for how hard it’s beating. It’s almost like it’s trying to fight its way out. 

Always the optimist, he holds out hope for the slim chance that he really is hallucinating. 

Examining the same general areas on the other side of his head, he finds two matching protrusions. 

_ ‘Well… I’m symmetrical, at the very least,’ _ he thinks bitterly, poking and prodding and sharply pulling away at every slight pain or hand tremor, terrified of breaking the skin.

He still didn’t want to go to the infirmary until he  _ absolutely had _ to, too afraid of hearing about any potential poor prognosis. Acknowledging it was too daunting right now. Somebody out there had to know something about this. He finally manages to tear himself away from his reflection after a long moment of continuous prodding. It  _ hurt _ . One of those pains that was so intense that it made you sick, and yet you were unable to stop messing with it. Like tonguing at sore inside your lip, or pressing on a bruise. Deep in his mind, Cirice muses to himself that he’d like to keep feeling it forever. 

When he realizes where his mind had wandered to, he shakes the thought from his head and digs around in his bed for his phone. He scrolls through his contacts and types up a quick message.

  
  


Hey do you mind if i come over real quick 

What for?

Need your advice on something

???

Sure, I guess

That’s all he needs. Fuck work, fuck looking presentable. Cirice throws on a hoodie and the first matching pair of shoes he finds, and he’s out. He doesn’t even know if he bothered to lock his door. 

The ghoul’s housing block is right next door, the building separated from his own by a tiny cement square that he assumes is meant to be a patio space. The bordering plants have long since grown over, maintenance ghouls not bothering to trim what wasn’t visible from the main walkways. Cirice steps over the odd vine or root and lets himself into the neighboring building through a side door that lead straight to the stairwell. 

_ ‘Second floor, last door on the left,’ _ he repeats to himself for no better reason than to keep his mind occupied. Otherwise he’d be reduced to a shaking, hyperventilating mess. 

He knocks on the door, shifting uneasily from foot to foot in the twelve seconds it takes for the chauffeur to answer. At Cirice’s twitchy form and wide eyed look of anxiety, he wordlessly steps aside and lets him in. After it’s closed, Cirice backs up against the door as if barricading it. From who or what, the chauffeur has no clue. Almost as if it were a second thought, he looks the chauffeur up and down. He’s still in his pajamas, his usual black uniform gone and replaced by a pair of charcoal grey sweatpants. Weird. Vaguely uncomfortable, even! That is more of the chauffeur than he ever cared to see. 

“Hi?”

Cirice’s thoughts snap right back into place, eyes widening, adrenaline and fear flooding back into his veins.

“I gotta show you something,” Cirice says in a rushed exhale.

“...Alright?”

The chauffeur narrows his eyes, suspicion noticeable even through the eyeholes of his mask. 

“It’s... kinda weird.” 

Eyes crinkling at the corners, the chauffeur smiles at him. Okay, so maybe he doesn’t care much about weird. Maybe weird is subjective! He should be more careful. The ghoul probably has stuff going on. Why would a ghoul judge him for some strange growths or extra parts, right?

Before Cirice has a chance to say anything or even respectfully avert his gaze, the chauffeur is lifting his mask just enough to show the lower half of his face. Cirice fights the reflexive urge to avert his eyes. Again, the chauffeur smiles, the corners of his suddenly lipless mouth somehow seeming to stretch wider than any mouth should. So wide that he’s surprised it doesn’t start to curl at the corners. Cirice winces and shivers, but then he blinks and all that’s there is the chauffeur’s “normal” row of teeth, set in a skull-like lower jaw as if what he’d just witnessed was nothing more than a trick of the light. Without much more fanfare, the chauffeur lowers his mask.

“Point  _ taken _ ! Jeez,” Cirice says, rubbing the goosebumps from his arms. “I fucking hate it when you do that.” 

“Disgust me,  _ please _ , I dare you.” 

Cirice furrows his eyebrows at the ghoul and takes a deep breath, his shoulders slumping just the barest amount. 

“Um... D’you know if there are any instances of people just… turning into ghouls?”

The chauffeur seems taken aback, but it’s hard to tell with the mask firmly back in place. Not that Cirice exactly wishes for otherwise, though he  _ had _ been slowly growing accustomed to all the quirks and charms of an unmasked ghoul’s appearance, thanks to both the chauffeur and Zaffre seeming to take immense pleasure in freaking out the uninitiated. 

“Cirice, hello? The Descension Rites? You literally attended my concluding ritual.”

Exasperated, Cirice claws at the air next to his head with a strangled noise.

“Well  _ yeah _ , but do you think there’s other ways?”

“To become a ghoul? Not that I know of.” The chauffeur shrugs, startling when Cirice groans and drags his hands down his face. “Is there something you’re not telling me here?”

“... Might be,” Cirice mumbles. He looks up at the chauffeur from the corner of his eye, and then looks away, grumbling and crossing his arms, then deciding that he didn’t want them crossed and settling for bending and twisting his fingers. “Lookit this,” he mumbles, pulling his hair back at about where he remembered one of the protrusions being. 

“What am I…?” the chauffeur flounders for the word before trailing off.

“Look closer!” 

He grabs the chauffeur’s hand and brings it up to the bony protrusions on the side of his head, ignoring the bright burst of pain that it brings. “What the fuck!” Cirice hisses. 

At first the chauffeur doesn’t move his hand at all, only looking closer and parting Cirice’s hair more with his other hand once he realizes what exactly he’s being made to look at.

“That look familiar to you?”

He wasn’t able to see them for himself with the angle and the bathroom mirror and the hair, but it’s undeniable. Those are horns. Very short, still buried under the skin but probably not for much longer. Cirice thinks about the velvet that covers the antlers of deer and hopes that he won’t ever have to walk around looking like even more of a disgusting mess. 

Taking a step back, he huffs and smooths his hands over his hair. The action was meant to calm himself, but the twinge of pain when the protrusions (strike) horns are bumped renders it useless. 

“You’re not…?”

The implication is heavy and unmistakable in his voice. Descension rituals that went unapproved by the Papa and uppermost members of the clergy were strictly prohibited. The punishments for doing so were only ever spoken in hushed whispers or used as ways for teenagers in the church to terrorize one another. 

Cirice shakes his head fervently. Though he knows that chauffeur is not - was no longer - human, he bites his tongue against any comments on how much he wouldn’t want to go through the lengthy and painful process of becoming a ghoul. The chauffeur looks at him, looks at the horns, looks back at him. 

“You need to go to the infirmary.” 

“What? No, I  _ know that _ , I have an appointment for tomorrow, I just — what are they even going to  _ do _ ?”

“Call an old priest and a young priest, maybe,” the ghoul says plainly, shrugging at Cirice’s complete lack of amusement and the double middle fingers thrown his way.

“Don’t be an asshole, I’m serious! What if they can’t fix it? What if they can’t do  _ anything? _ ”

“Sorry. I don’t know, Cirice,” the chauffeur sighs, rubbing his eyes through the holes of his mask. He tears a sheet of paper off of the little magnetic notepad on the door of his freezer. 

“You probably won’t need a ride, since it’s so close, but call in for one if you don’t feel good. You know where to go, right? I can draw you some directions–” The chauffeur cuts his thoughts short at the sound of Cirice snorting, the way that he does when he’s trying to hold in a laugh. “What?”

“Think you’ve been hanging out with Mayrose too much,” he says. His voice quivers, but neither of them mention it. 

The chauffeur stares at him blankly, hunched over his table with the pen hovering over the paper. Even under the mask, Cirice can see the exact moment when his eyebrows furrow in indignation and maybe a little bit of embarrassment. He sputters a half thought out denial, or maybe it’s supposed to be an excuse, and Cirice finally lets himself crack a smile. 

“Man, fuck you,” the chauffer laughs, despite himself. “Go do your job!”

He’s playfully shoved over to the door and the scribbled directions are shoved in his hand. They part with their typical exchanged “text you whenever”s and “I’ll see you when I see you”s. Before Cirice can make his escape and bolt to work before his scheduled clock in time, the chauffeur stops him. 

“Tell me how it goes. Okay?”

“...Yeah. For sure.”

At least the lightheartedness of the visit eased his mind a little, however forced it may have been. There wasn’t much to do except follow through with going to his appointment, and the receptionist who’d asked why he was calling either didn’t think it was urgent, thought he was over exaggerating, or did a fantastic job of downplaying the situation. Cirice thinks that maybe it was a combination of the three. 

The rest of his day continues as normally as he can manage. The weight of anxiety and fear is wearing on him, making him feel snippy and tired as always, but it’s reassuring to know that he can lighten the burden somewhat by throwing all of his time and effort into something productive. Most of that time and effort, however, is spent distractedly following thin lines on xeroxed paper rather than reading the words that they form. Thin, delicate bars crossing and looping, dramatic flourishes contrasting with, but not being tarnished by, hastily scribbled additions and corrections, crammed into the margins or between lines. Cirice thinks he might like those parts more. The afterthoughts, the clarifications and questions addressed to nobody in particular. There’s a comfort in editing and restructuring thoughts into something coherent, even if they aren’t his own.

  
  


The waiting room is cold and austere, yet still doesn’t give off the same sensation of being devoid of all life the way that larger clinics in the city do. Brown pleather chairs line the walls, some bearing claw marks on the seat corners. Others have tufts of acrylic stuffing sticking out from where the upholstery meets dark stained wood. The seams of a few white linoleum tiles are peeled up and buckled at the edges. A loudly ticking clock on the wall and the low sound of the receptionist’s phone are the only inorganic sounds in the building. 

“Hi. I’m uh, I have an appointment for 3pm?” 

“Right. And what are you seeing the doctor for?”

Cirice looks around, hands shoved deep into the front pocket of his oversized sweatshirt, wary of the smattering of other people in the waiting room. Nobody looks his way, or seems to have even noticed his presence. With weak and shaky hands, he pulls the hood of his sweatshirt slightly back along with his hair to show the small horns growing on the side of his head, having finally burst through the skin sometime during the night. If he’s surprised at all, the receptionist makes no indication of it whatsoever. If anything, he seems bored. He looks over the rims of his wire framed glasses at Cirice for the longest five seconds he has ever endured before scribbling something down on a clipboard. 

“Alright. Have a seat,” he says, pointing at an empty chair in the far corner with his pen. Before Cirice can say anything else or ask about wait times or even intake paperwork, the receptionist finally answers the incessantly ringing phone on his desk. Cirice awkwardly hangs there for another second, unsure if he should wait until he’s done to ask his questions or just shut his mouth and sit down. He decides on the latter. It already took him this long to see a doctor in the first place; waiting another however many minutes-to-hours won’t kill him. Probably. 

As expected, he watches the clock on the wall slowly creep its way toward 4:45. The only thing he has to keep himself occupied, aside from his still-fried phone, is rhythmically tapping his feet on the laminate flooring. Slouched low in the uncomfortable plasticky chair and skin prickling slightly, he glances around at the now familiar feeling of eyes on him. An older woman a few chairs to his left is looking him up and down, her eyebrow quirked in mild irritation, no doubt noticing his jittery behavior and admittedly run down appearance. He pauses, makes long, unbroken eye contact with her until she looks away, and immediately resumes his tapping. This time he makes use of the chair’s wooden arm rests, tapping his slightly overgrown nails in time with his feet and trying not to chuckle when he sees the woman tense. 

The door leading to the exam rooms is swung open and a masked figure steps partially out.

“Maciél?” 

At the sound of his name, he freezes mid-drum solo to stare at them for a second before wordlessly making his way over and following down the hallway with his hood up and hands back in his pocket. The examination room looks about as normal as any other, ignoring the dual health charts that covered both human and ghoulish anatomy and common maladies. The doctor stayed seated when he entered, long reddish hair held up in a high ponytail and thick framed glasses pushed up on her forehead. Looking up, she gives him a curt nod and a wordless invitation to have a seat. In the opposite corner sits the ghoul who had called his name, a tablet balanced on their knees. 

At first they chatted casually for a while about any old thing – the weather and work, mostly, although the whole thing was pretty one-sided – until the doctor decided it was time to begin cheerfully interrogating him about past health stuff, while Cirice just shrugged and nodded accordingly. 

“And how do you feel?”

“Like shit, mostly.”

“Emotionally.” 

“...Like shit, mostly.” 

The doctor makes a disapproving sound in her throat and Cirice shrinks back. Sitting on the exam table with its slightly worrying greasy texture and crinkly protective covering that he can only liken to butcher paper, Cirice kicks his legs and reminds himself to relax and try not to worry too much about judgement. What does he care if some stuffy village doctor thinks he’s gross and weird? _She's probably seen all kinds of things_ , he reminds himself. _She won't care._ He clears his throat and attempts to give as straightforward of an answer as he can.

“Uh. Not good?” At the doctor’s raised eyebrow and nod, he continues. “I’m tired a lot but I think that’s because of the thoughts keeping me up.”

“What kind of thoughts?”

“Just, thoughts about everything, all the time. Hard to keep track. Hard to stop myself from thinking and doing stuff," he mutters. After a pause to gather his thoughts, he continues. "Shitty stuff. Mean stuff. Sometimes it makes me happy, but then I feel bad about it pretty much immediately. Like really, _really_ bad.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he stares at the ghoul dutifully typing everything as speaks.

“Don’t worry about that. It's only notes for your medical file. Continue. How's your social life?”

“Right, um. I don’t really… like people anymore. Like to be left alone, or feel like I should be. Headaches, obviously, every day,”  Cirice sighs, already sick of talking about it. He curls his nails into the back of his other hand inside the pouch pocket of his hoodie.  “Sad, angry. I can’t ever decide if I hate somebody or not. Scared a lot too, like people’re watching me, waiting for something.”

The doctor reports her findings over her shoulder, the ghoulette's claws tapping rapidly across the screen. Her words are far more succinct and professional-sounding than Cirice’s – impulsivity, paranoid ideation, mild antisocial behavior, social isolation, racing thoughts, mood swings. Terms that Cirice was already familiar with and had of course run into during one of his many late nights spent googling his feelings, but still felt too uncomfortable or disconnected from to use.

“Can you identify what causes these thoughts?” 

“I don’t know. I try not to think about it.”

“And about when did this begin?”

The doctor takes Cirice’s hands in her own gloved ones as Cirice fumbles his way through recounting the events of the party to the best of his ability. They’re turned palm up, then down, then back up again, the doctor intermittently humming and bending his fingers and directing him to squeeze. The contact makes him itchy, even through the protective barrier. Instead of pulling away, he focuses on the faint lines and spots of color he can see through the thin latex. Tattoos?

“Uh, I kind of always had them?” The doctor raises an eyebrow. “Just a little bit. They just… got worse -- a lot worse -- after this... party. A couple months ago. I was trying to go home but I was  _ really _ drunk, and I got confused, and… then I was super hung over. Missed a bunch of work. I’ve been feeling like shit ever since.”

Lights are shined in his eyes, one eye covered and then the other, following the doctor’s finger as it’s moved side to side. His jaw is pried open with one hand and Cirice attempts to squirm away, sputtering at the unpleasant taste of latex and talcum powder as his teeth and gums are inspected and pressed on. The doctor hums, then stands to poke and prod at the base of the horns, uncaring of or not noticing the way that Cirice grits his teeth and twitches away from the stomach churning pressure. 

“Ow! Knock it off!”

After a particularly intense shock of pain shoots through his skull, he makes to shove the doctor off before reigning himself in. Instead, he digs his nails into his legs.

Again, she speaks aloud to the ghoul with the tablet, though Cirice doesn’t necessarily understand the words this time. What he does understand is the word “possession” being thrown around more than a couple times to be comfortable and it takes every ounce of resolve in his body to not lash out at the doctor right then and there.

“Why do you keep saying that? _Stop saying that.”_

“This combination of symptoms that you’re exhibiting usually happens when a demonic force attaches itself to a host, but… hmm.”

The whole room suddenly feels far too hot, oversized hoodie too bulky and irritating. Instead of fear, or maybe in addition to it, all he feels is anger, like the doctor had been going out of her way to personally offend him. 

“What? What is  _ hmm _ ? Don't tell me  _ hmm _ .”

“Looks like there’s some sort of interference. Luckily, it doesn’t look like it developed too far. If your timeline is accurate–” 

“ _ It is. _ ” 

“–then it should be much further along by now. But this, it seems to have either slowed a considerable amount or stopped completely.” 

That answers exactly none of the questions currently flooding Cirice’s head.

“So how does that happen? Why’d it stop? How come I'm not running around looking like–” 

He stops himself mid-hand gesture. The masked ghoul cocks their head at him. “...Sorry.” 

_Piece of shit,_ his brain helpfully supplies. 

“Mm-hm. It’s not an exact science by any means, despite how the church may make it seem. More study is necessary, but this can happen with weak or malformed entities… Has anything out of the ordinary happened before or around the time of onset?”

“How do you mean?”

“Major dysfunction, emotional turmoil, personal tragedy…”

“What? No! ...What?  _ No. _ No. ...Why?” 

The doctor gives him a stern look, his floundering speaking volumes. Silence hangs heavily in the air until it becomes apparent that Cirice is not going to elaborate. 

“Creatures like this, they usually follow you around for a while and wear you down before trying anything. Unless of course you’re already in a fragile state of mind—” 

“Hey, fuck you, asshole!” 

The doctor shrugs, the lack of any clear emotional reaction only infuriating Cirice further. 

“Nothing to be ashamed of. You're not the first person this has happened to and you won't be the last. We’ll just need to monitor–” 

“That  _ doesn't  _ make me feel better. And I don't want you or anybody else monitoring me!”

_Monitoring._ He turns the word around in his head for a while. _Like what, some kind of science experiment? A bug under a magnifying glass whose only use is to be poked and prodded and experimented on and gawked at–_

He does his best to swallow that feeling down. 

The doctor taps her chin with a gloved finger.

“You’ve not performed any at-home rituals, have you?”

Nervously, Cirice thinks about that time last week, when he considered attempting to commune with the spirits to help find his phone charger. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, doc.” 

The doctor’s face softens just the slightest amount.

“I can’t force you, but if that’s the case, then I don’t know what else I can do for you. Anything you can tell me is valuable information.” 

Cirice takes a deep, steadying breath, holding his hands tight in his lap to stop the shaking. Whether it’s anxiety or residual nerves and anger, he can't tell. The doctor raises her eyebrows expectantly. 

“Some kids made this… summoning circle, I guess, at that party. But it was all shitty looking! What kind of devil comes through a circle that fucked up, right? No one thought anything of it. Probably didn’t even report it to upper clergy.” 

The doctor seems far too calm and collected for this conversation and Cirice wonders distantly how many times she’s run through this exact sequence of events. The thought isn't comforting. 

“So what's gonna happen, huh?” His tone is challenging, confrontational, but the doctor sits calmly in her rolling chair and waits for Cirice to finish his next barrage of questions, voice raising in volume and franticness the longer it goes on. “Am I gonna die? Go crazy? Am I gonna black out one day and then just never come back? Is it trying to steal my brain?”

The doctor holds up both hands. A slight smile is present on her face, though not an unkind one, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes deepening. There's no hint of mockery or revulsion, like Cirice had feared there would be coming in. 

“No, no, none of that. That’s Hollywood stuff!” 

Cirice keeps his mouth shut, mind racing with a million  _ more _ questions, but he settles for crossing his legs and arms and waiting for the doctor to explain. 

“Demonic possession affects your brain and body,” the doctor begins slowly, like explaining an injury to a child. Like Cirice had sprained an ankle or contracted a virus. “Maybe it would help to think of it like this: you are still you, but with some... additional fine print. It all depends on how you go about adapting and overcoming!” 

“...Adapting and overcoming.”

“Yes,” she says, rolling her way to the low counter on the other end of the room and pulling a few pamphlets from the back row of a clear acrylic display stand, which are then handed off in a messy pile to Cirice. 

One of the glossy booklets in Cirice’s discolored hand reads “ _ So, You’ve Been Possessed _ ” and is complete with a horned mascot with big orange doe eyes and a little pitchfork. From the photos inside, he gets the sneaking suspicion that, despite the bright colors and condescendingly juvenile tone of the booklet, it was not  _ actually _ meant for children. Glaring down at the pamphlet, he quirks an eyebrow and lets the pages crinkle in his slowly tightening grip, but says nothing. He moves on to the next, skimming over the text and focusing mainly on the photos inside.  Some people in there look sort of like him, some don’t, but they all have the unifying trait of something being _off_ about them. Something different. Whether that be horns, jagged crocodile teeth, scaled or discolored skin, additional eyes, elongated limbs… A heading on the inner left fold of the pamphlet reminds him that not all possessions manifest in the same way. 

“Do you remember anything else about that night?” 

“What? No. I don't know,” he says defensively. After a second, he thinks better of it and relaxes his tense shoulders. The doctor leans forward in her chair and motions for him to continue. 

“… I think there was static? Something was buzzing and everything got all… I don’t know,” Cirice mutters, leaning his head heavily into his free hand. His skull throbs. "I wanna go home."

“Hey, hey, hey, relax. Don’t try to force it.”

The emotional rollercoaster is finally taking its toll on him, leaving him feeling more drained and exhausted than ever before. He doesn’t even have the energy to feign indignance when the doctor gives him what he assumes to be a look of sympathy, instead burying his face into his hands. When the doctor speaks again, he peeks through the spaces between his blotchy fingers. 

“It may come back over time. Some people never remember or only remember bits and pieces. Trying to force it may very well do more harm than good, alright?”

Cirice nods and sniffs, clearing his throat. 

“Should you… should you report this to somebody? That seems important. What about my confidentiality or whatever? I don’t really want anyone knowing about… all this.”

The doctor gives him an unreadable look that Cirice interprets as something to the effect of incredulity.  _ Right. _ The physical aspect. Devils, demons, ghouls. If things kept moving at the rate they were currently, then his condition would soon be plainly visible to anyone with half a brain. They would know whether he wanted them to or not, whether they had the full story or not. The doctor sighs.

“Oh, believe me, the upper clergy _will_ know about this. No intimate details about your condition, but there are regulations and protocol in place for injuries or illness related to unauthorized summonings. Whether your peers know  all the details... Well. That's your choice. We can't make you disclose and we won't stop you if you want to. It will certainly offer an explanation for your appearance and may make it easier to explain away any erratic or bizarre behavior.”

“...I don't  _ want to _ explain away shitty behavior. I want it to go away. I want someone to fix this.” 

As if they could simply use tweezers to pluck whatever _it_ was out through his ear. Flush it out with a spray like a bad infection. It’s a little hard to shake off something that’s already burrowed its way under your skin, making itself at home in your head, heart, the pit of your stomach. _Stupid. Idiot._

“Eventually you will learn how to handle yourself properly,” the doctor says softly, reassuringly. At the moment, the sentiment was about as helpful as  _ “have you tried acting normal?” _

The doctor removes her latex gloves and drops them into a wastebasket, rubbing the talcum powder from heavily tattooed hands. At first, Cirice thought that she had words across her knuckles but now he realizes that they're sigils. Alchemical in nature, but otherwise unfamiliar to him. She begins murmuring something to the ghoul in the corner, about scheduling followup appointments and a possible need for additional testing. As if he’s an afterthought, the doctor turns back to Cirice.

“We have resources if you want them; I’ll have a nurse get back to you with the number for a counselor. Support groups every other Wednesday in the library... If you remember anything at all, or notice anything strange going on–” 

“I have fucking horns.” 

“–don’t be afraid to call-"

"My hands-"

"-or stop in for a checkup, okay?”

Cirice glares up at the doctor beneath furrowed eyebrows and then looks down his nose at the perfectly posed family on the back of one glossy pamphlet, all normal save for the one on the left – rotten greenish pallor and sickly yellow eyes, smiling with her crocodile teeth. 

“How are you so calm about this?” 

Cirice’s voice is thick, sounding foreign to his own ears. 

“You see a lot in this profession. Especially here.” 

There's a slight chuckle in her voice at the end there. _Business as usual._ That’s how it is, right? You have to learn how to separate yourself. You’re useless if you spend all your time panicking. Better to disconnect. Another faceless client to come in to poke and prod and scrutinize and compartmentalize– 

The image of the family blurs together and he imagines each of them crying and blackened out and the photo bends in, crumpled between his hands. 

“Go to Hell.”

With a long suffering sigh, the doctor responds in turn with practiced ease. 

“Likely.”

  
  
  


He takes the rest of the day off work and sleeps. Fitful at first, dreaming of static and trees and a vice grip around his hands and jolting awake at every sound, but soon enough he’s able to sleep deeply and heavily. 

There were things to deal with, of course, before he could settle back into the routine that defined his life before. Explanations he had to offer to his bosses and his managers and his coworkers, extra work he had to do in apology for how much he'd been missing, promises he had to make about not letting it happen again. Apologies for bad behavior and this time an explanation to help them understand. Help him understand how not to do it again.

Most reactions were neutral to positive, surprisingly – some expressing a mix of relief and pride that he’d “gotten himself figured out”, concern that it took him so long to do so, some even reacting with shock that there was something wrong to begin with – but he does take notice of the marked decrease in social interaction he sees at work. No more parties, no going out to get lunch, no taking his breaks with other people from his floor. Cirice thinks he might prefer it that way. It’s easy to wish someone well while hoping they take their problems to anyone else but you. There’s nothing worse than venting your problems to somebody who invited you to talk and be open with them, only to realize halfway through that they either don’t care or are getting much more than they bargained for. 

_ ‘Right back where we started from,’ _ he grouses, mourning what little social life he’d carved out for himself.

Eventually, the horn-related shattering sensation in his skull would dwindle down to nothing. They would reach a certain point and then their growth would slow to a barely noticeable crawl, not unlike the average ghoul or other terrestrial animal. At least that’s what he was told when he had called back, mostly to apologize to the doctor who had seemingly already forgotten about how Cirice had spoken to her after their first meeting. He’s sure the doctor had heard much worse before. 

There's an increase in quality and quantity of his output at work, though there are days when he remains distracted, starts snapping at people. He takes off to the break room in the back portion of the offices for a breather much more often, but now for shorter periods of time and only when the outer silence and inner anxiety began to gnaw at him in a particularly vicious way. The headaches are still as present as ever. Something about tension and stress that he didn’t bother to commit to memory. Nothing that can’t be solved by the ever-present packets of ibuprofen. 

  
  


Some months later, he finds himself lounging outside in the courtyard, supposedly working on a sermon in the pleasantly cool breeze. Papers on a clipboard sit forgotten on his lap and outstretched legs, while his head is leaned back over the edge of the stone bench. It's easier to admire the changing colors of the overhead leaves that way.

His calming view of the vibrant reds and oranges are quickly obstructed by a dark mask and a flowing cloak as Zaffre leans over into his personal space, tilting their head side to side like a curious cat. How was it that they seemed to always stretch and shrink as needed to achieve the most unnerving and inhuman movements possible? Maybe it had something to do with their element. What element that may be, Cirice still hasn’t been able to figure out. Somehow he got it into his head that it would be rude to ask that sort of thing, though the same courtesy was rarely extended to him regarding the short black horns now poking out of his hair.

“I’m working.” 

“Are you?”

Letting his eyes slip shut for a second, Cirice sighs. 

“...No.”

Then he sits up and gathers everything into a neater, more manageable pile beside him on the bench. His hands now look as if they've been completely covered in coal dust - uneven, splotchy, grey in some spots and blue-black in others. If he looks close enough in some places, he can see the little tessellating triangles of his skin, like when you draw on your hand and the ink fans out. He traces the shapes on his knuckles with a pointed fingernail. 

Zaffre lifts their mask to expose a toothy grimace and takes a loud bite out of the apple Cirice hadn’t noticed before. So they were on their break, then? Without much explanation, they crawl over the back of the bench and take a seat in the empty space, separated from Cirice by only his clipboard. There’s no attempt at forcing any sort of conversation and the two of them sit in a weird heavy silence, save for Zaffre’s crunching and the renewed scratching of Cirice’s pencil on one of the papers. 

He’d been trying to create… something. Anything.  Slowly he found the ability to draw something aside from frenzied chickenscratch coming back to him. It was somewhat like retraining an atrophied muscle. Each attempt got further and more decipherable than the last, starting from loose scribbles and shapes, eventually coming together over the course of several weeks to form something that looked sort of like his old work. It was better than nothing. Better than before. The lack of a satisfying outlet was starting to make him feel a little like something was congested and building up until it threatened to explode at the slightest provocation. Like a tiger pacing back and forth in a little cage, eyeing up the zookeepers all the while. He can’t remember the last time he’d drawn something that wasn’t a poorly planned abstract nightmarescape or a crude stick figure saying obscenities. 

His third attempt at a cat in a ghoul mask leaves him frustrated, scratching the failure out with an irritated grumble. Zaffre looks over at him from where they’re neatly organizing the seeds and stem of the devoured apple into a flower shape on the arm of the bench. 

“I should get back in before someone notices I'm not at my desk doing invoices,” he says, making no move to stand or put any of his belongings away. Instead, he slumps further into the bench.

“Oh, they noticed already. Miranda sent me to come get you.” 

Cirice scoffs. Several different thoughts cloud his brain almost immediately, the two most prominent of which being “ _ for fucking what? _ ” and “ _ so what are you doing just sitting here? _ ” 

At least one of those thoughts must come through on his face, because Zaffre elaborates before Cirice can open his mouth to verbalize either of them. 

“You're on confessional tomorrow afternoon.”

Cirice lets his head fall back onto the backrest of the bench with a dull thud. 

“ _ Fuuuck _ .” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to let Mayrose make an appearance to cause a fuss, but couldn’t fit her in naturally. Her scene is in the deleted scenes vault instead. Too bad. 


	12. Island

Cirice is unsure of how long he sits in that booth, lazily doodling cubes and pyramids in the upper corners of his papers, occasionally adding onto the messy scrawl that is his handwriting, before he picks up a set of footsteps approaching through the grass. Idly, he picks at the corner of a stapled packet, waiting until they’re seated and settled. 

“Father, I come to you for guidance.”

Bringing his work with him into the confessional was a better idea than he’d anticipated. The day started off slow, giving him something to do between confessors, as well as acting as a quick and easy way to redirect his frustration when faced with certain moral dilemmas. Giving straightforward directions was usually frowned upon when it came to taking confession – the whole purpose of it was to lead the confessor into a conclusion of their own by way of leading questions or persuasively worded advice. 

Gentle prompting to take a pamphlet on healthy outlets for anger and possibly looking into setting up a meeting with a mediator to resolve any severe interpersonal issues. Constant reiteration that a core belief taught in the church is to act in a way that would allow you to carry yourself with dignity, and that acting like a spoiled little brat and forming schoolyard cliques was  _ hardly _ dignified. A stern reminder that consent can be revoked and boundaries can be changed at any time, and that the Papa has talked at length about clear boundaries and communication within all relationships. 

With each visit, his temper flares just the barest amount, slowly increasing in heat and intensity. He has to admit, there is a little part of him (okay, maybe a large part) that wonders what would happen if he encouraged such behaviors. If he  _ didn’t _ try to keep people in line with the Church’s moral code. His pen gouges deep valleys that show through several pages each time he furiously scribbles a note or draws aimless shapes along the margins. Of course there was the very real possibility of getting himself into trouble with that sort of behavior but at the same time, he was curious. 

What if he told that Sister that she was justified in her plan to key that guy’s Mercedes for not returning her calls, knowing full well that she would be caught on the security cameras in the parking lot? What kind of fallout would come about from fostering hostility in the community, knowing that Papa and his ghouls strongly disapproved of insolence and had ways of dealing with such immaturity? What if he said that pouring bleach into the laundry as an act of petty revenge on your ex was okay, even while knowing that those in housekeeping were  _ particularly _ surly and sought out any excuse to attack someone for making a mess of things? 

Shaking his head, Cirice pauses in the middle of attempting to pry up the staple with his thumbnail to look straight ahead at the wall, willing himself not to sigh heavily. Maybe he was being a little harsh. For many of these people,  especially younger ones, this was their first taste of freedom and independence. The first time they’ve been encouraged to pursue certain activities and desires previously regarded as wrong or shameful. Being unsure and awkward was a given, and setting and following certain boundaries may not come naturally to some.  At the very least, the ones bent on acting out of anger or hurt seem to be easily dissuaded by some gentle prompting to view things objectively. Even if you were in a new environment and a new community with a new culture, you still know right from wrong on the most basic level, right? 

He’d been doing his best to behave himself throughout today’s confession. But when he slips up, unable to hold his tongue and put on an air of professionalism any longer, he’s met with a stunned silence from the Sibling on the other side. Fifteen minutes of attempting to guide a discussion on revoked consent and the concept of an individual’s fluctuating level of comfort will do that to a man.

“You  _ are _ aware that as some people become more familiar with a situation, they may change their opinion on it?”

“Of course! Papa taught us all about that within my first month at the abbey.”

Cirice makes a face, shrugging and tilting his head a little in approval. The sermons probably didn’t need total overhauling, like he had been quietly pushing for all this time. The issue most likely lay more in maturity and experience than the actual lessons themselves – something that the Siblings would hopefully come to in their own time.

“...But I don’t understand why she would say she was alright with it if she really wasn’t? Why not just say that you don’t want that in the first place?”

The question hits him like a mack truck and he feels his mouth move before he even realizes what he’s saying. 

“Have you stopped to consider that maybe things aren’t so black and white?” 

He immediately wishes that he could slap himself, but only grimaces instead, covering his face with his paperwork out of embarrassment. The heat rising to his face lends itself to little pinpricks of sweat at his hairline. 

“F-forgive me, Father.”

He digs his nails into the palm of his hand. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to ground himself. Come down from the tremors and adrenaline that come from thoughtlessly speaking out of turn. With a deep breath, and a good deal of effort, he pushes all aggravation out of his voice and adopts instead what he assumes to be a detached and professional tone – something akin to a customer service voice.

“Don’t apologize. I don’t mean to be harsh with you. That was out of line. I’m not here to judge you, or anyone else for that matter. But I do think it would do you some good to set your personal feelings aside and try putting yourself in somebody else’s position before jumping into any confrontations.”

Anxiously, he drums on his thighs with both hands, careful to not make a sound. He does make a mental note to follow his own advice for once, maybe. The Sibling stays quiet for a long stretch of time as they think over his outburst(strike) suggestion. An unpleasant chill settles in his stomach, creeping higher and higher up his spine and neck, feeling much like a cold and clammy hand gripping the back of his skull. When the Sibling speaks again, the feeling is gone. Maybe it was never even real to begin with. Tiredly, Cirice rubs his eyes. 

“No, it’s… I think you’re right.” A pause. A disbelieving chuckle. “You  _ really  _ need to work on your people skills, Father. I can’t believe they even let you in here.”

He doesn’t catch himself in time to stop the bark of a laugh that the comment gets out of him. 

An impromptu break at the end of his shift sees Cirice standing outside the confessional, using the broad solid wall as a writing surface as he scribbles new notes and scratches even more of them out. He needed air, sweat prickling at his hairline and an uncomfortable yet invisible layer of grime settling on his skin. The edge of the paper flutters irritatingly in the light breeze, getting in the way more than once. At least it's marginally more pleasant than the stale, dusty air inside the confessional.  Cirice huffs, dotting an I and crossing the final T on his paper, then folding it back up and clutching it tight. It’ll go directly to the clerk on the fifth floor, provided he doesn’t either forget or get cold feet. Letting his eyes slowly scan the courtyard, he leans his full weight against the confessional. The morning was grey and humid, and had only gotten worse as the day wore on. Not many siblings or ghouls were out, save for those who were between classes or on breaks of their own. His shirt and hair stick uncomfortably to his skin. 

Ten minutes into his people watching, he makes accidental eye contact with a woman passing by on the cobblestone path, in the direction of the library. One he’d met previously during rituals but hadn’t bothered exchanging names with, with her greying hair done up in a high ponytail. Hesitantly, Cirice raises a closed hand and slowly uncurls his fingers in an awkward, half hearted wave. She slows to a stop, changes direction and makes her way to him. 

“Afternoon, Father. Are you finished for the day?”

“I am now,” he mutters, tilting his head from one side to another until he hears a crack. The Sister winces. “I don’t mean to keep you. Just felt like I oughta say hi.”

“And I’m saying hello back,” she says. “Lighten up.” 

“Right.” Absently, he rubs his upper arm. “I assume you’re keeping busy?”

The Sister shifts an armful of books tucked against her left side to her right. 

“I’ve been trying. There aren’t as many off-grounds rituals to schedule now that the Third has been making his rounds out there.” Cirice nods as she speaks, not making eye contact but listening intently. Of course. That must be why so many outsiders were trying harder than usual to reach the Second and his ghouls. The Sister had explained something to him before at a previous smaller ritual, about creating a demand. “And you’re spending your break… working?”

He looks up at her, and she nods down to the thick stack of folded over papers still clutched in his hands.

“No, it’s… not work. It’s a revision request. You know, to make sure everyone at all those rituals they’re gonna have you schedule doesn’t misunderstand the fairly straightforward concepts that Papa is always preaching about,” he says, only partially joking.

“Father, don’t be mean,” the Sister chides, her tone betrayed by an upward quirk of her lips when she bats at his arm with the back of her hand.

She rolls her eyes when Cirice shrugs and says nothing, but plucks out the cigarette tucked behind his ear with two fingers. He offers it to the Sister first, who shakes her head with a quiet  _ no, thanks _ and he shrugs, putting it instead to his lips and lighting it. The Sister seems content to stand in silence near him, looking out over the vast expanse of perfectly manicured grass and foliage. A few more Siblings and ghouls have come out by now, grouping together on the grass or walkways.

“...Hey, aren’t you not supposed to let the acolytes see you?”

Cirice looks up from where he’s leaning against the solid backing of the confessional booth, cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth, seemingly only to let it burn out after that first pull. 

“ _ I’m _ not supposed to see  _ them _ . Everyone knows it’s me in there anyway. Silhouette.” 

With a vague hand motion circling his head, he indicates to the two sets of pointy horns jutting out from under all his hair. 

The lower pair of horns seems to be curving downward and in slightly, towards his cheeks. Something to worry about if they start veering too close to his eyes, maybe, but otherwise he’s made peace with them as best he can. Cirice shuffles his feet further out, sinking down and keeping his legs straight. A number of cigarette butts are crushed under his shoes as he sinks a few inches lower against the wooden wall. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. His train of thought isn’t derailed, it merely goes a little too fast for his liking. As if without permission from his brain, he hears himself speak.

“How come you think people come in to confession?”

The Sister lets the question hang in the air unanswered as she looks out over the courtyard.

“Well... Everyone needs an outlet. I think people just want to know that they’re okay. But you should know more about this than I do, hopefully.”

Cirice rolls the cigarette to the center of his lower lip and touches his tongue to the end of the filter. It clings to the tip of his tongue, dry and bitter. 

“An outlet… Yeah. I think so.” He nods, mostly to himself, and scratches idly with his thumbnail at the line of his lower lip. “But I feel like– I feel like so many of them don’t  _ wanna _ hear it, you know? They  _ want  _ someone to tell them they’re right for doing something stupid or petty or cruel.” 

Circe breathes heavily for a few agonizing seconds, silence making him fearful that he’d just said something wildly inappropriate. But if he did, would it matter? The Sister finally tears her gaze away from the admittedly stunning horizon before them to look Cirice in the eye. Ash drifts onto the front of his shirt, but he makes no moves to dust it off. 

“I wish you’d quit saying shit like that. It’s unprofessional.”

Cirice barks out another laugh.

Neither of them push to continue the conversation. It doesn’t bother Cirice as much as he thought it would. She was on her way somewhere when he distracted her, and he had to be on his way as well. Soon, the Sister says her goodbyes and continues on her way down the winding cobblestone path in the direction of the library, leaving Cirice to his thoughts. He settles his internal debate with the conclusion that only a small fraction of confessors are coming in because they’re hoping to sway somebody to their side of an argument they couldn't care less about, hoping their choices will be validated by a third party. It just so happens that that small fraction is the fraction that sticks out most in his mind. It would probably benefit everybody involved if Cirice had a little more faith, but he considers his conclusion progress nonetheless.

Before Cirice leaves the booth, he crouches down to collect every cigarette butt off of the slightly damp ground into cupped hands to be thrown away on his way to drop off the keys.

Cirice easily settles back into the semi dull, yet safe routine of an average workday. Typing and copying and typing some more, even sending out an email requesting bulk quantities of frankincense from their supplier instead of small batches after his coworkers griped about not wanting to be the one to deal with their sales rep. Two hours into hitting his rhythm, a call is forwarded automatically to his desk after it isn’t picked up in time by reception. 

There’s a cacophony of voices on the other line, so distracting that he can hardly keep up. Before he can even ask, the voice is immediately demanding he take a message for someone whose name he misses, along with something about an important delivery. Normally he can make an educated guess, but he doesn’t recall hearing about any particularly important incoming packages, or ever hearing a name with a similar sound before. Not even a surname given either, like he’s supposed to just  _ know _ . Who would be so casual as to give a first name but no last, especially regarding a supposedly important delivery to such a large place? 

There’s too much chatter on the other line. Some of the garbled voices sound like ghoulish, but the number on the caller ID was unknown – if it was from one of the other cathedrals, he would know it. As he fumbles for a notepad to take down any relevant information, the voice seems to get distracted from his own intent. The voice – a man – raises sharply in volume, thankfully sounding like he had at least pulled the receiver away from his mouth. 

_“Shut up! Shut the hell up!"_

The yelling is followed by muffled giggles. Half dismissing the call as some sort of prank,  Cirice starts chewing the inside of his lip in aggravation. 

“ _ Excuse me _ .” 

“Ah! Sorry, dear." A pause. "Have you ever been to Oregon?”

Cirice cringes away from the nickname, his lip curling into a snarl, but says nothing. This _had_ to be a joke. A group of ghouls and Siblings using a personal phone to call the office to set someone up for a lame pun. His eyes narrow.

“No. No, I’ve never been to Oregon,” Cirice responds icily, contrasting the strange, put-upon perkiness in the other voice. 

“Beautiful place! Such artistry! I took it upon myself to pick up a gift, please let him know, yes? It should arrive  _ byyy _ ,” his voice gets further from the mouthpiece. There’s a rustling, as if he's checking something. A calendar, maybe. “Well… I don’t know when it will be there. But soon! Okay. Surely, he will–”

“Hey, wait, wait, wait! I’m sorry,  _ who _ is this delivery for again?” 

He can practically hear the slow smile spreading across the caller’s lips, punctuated by a soft chuckle on the other line. When he speaks again, his voice drips with an air of sarcasm.

“For my  _ beloved _ big brother, of course!” 

Cirice winces and bares his teeth, his barely audible hiss picked up by the receiver.  _ Fuck.  _ Cirice had a sneaking suspicion but didn’t want to jump the gun for fear of embarrassing himself if he assumed wrong. The man on the other line – Emeritus the Third, of  _ course _ , how stupid of him that he couldn’t tell immediately just from that lilting accent, always with a tone that seems to say  _ “I know something you don’t know”  _ – continues on unimpeded. 

“Oh, I wish I could be there to see the look on his face! Next time, next time. Do give him my best for me, hm?”

“...Of course. Right away, Papa.”

Emeritus the Third hums in what seems to be amusement, barely audible over the rising babbling in the background, and hangs up without so much as another word. Slowly, Cirice’s hand drifts away from his face until the clack of the handset on the desk’s surface snaps him out of his confused daze. He hits the button on the phone’s cradle to end the call and punches in the extension to Emeritus the  _ Second’s _ office phone, rehearsing his next words in his head so as not to stutter or fumble while the line rings. 

There’s a soft click and for a moment, Cirice thinks he might have gotten through, only to jump at the cold, automated voice on the other end informing him to hang up and try again later. 

_ ‘Not even a voicemail inbox?’  _ He thinks to himself. Not that he could blame the guy. 

Cirice hangs up, sighing and rubbing his eyes. It’s quite possible that the Second merely missed the phone; he knew he was in today, he had seen the swish of floor length vestments in his peripheral vision as he rounded the corner of the third floor landing in the stairwell that morning. Heard the loud thud of the fifth floor door slamming shut behind him. With a quiet, sulky groan, Cirice pushes away from his desk and heads for the stairwell. Best to get it over with now before he forgets. 

When Cirice knocks tentatively on the dark wood door of Papa’s office, he gets no response. It takes three more attempts at knocking, the ringing of several missed phone calls coming from inside, and the slight burn of awkward embarrassment settling in for him to give up, concluding that Papa simply wasn’t there. But if memory served, Papa hardly ever left the fifth floor. He had to be  _ somewhere _ .  Cirice takes a few minutes to quietly creep around the fifth floor, taking in the layout and subtle differences in decor. He’d been up here before, of course, but only for quick visits when absolutely necessary. The windows on this level were larger, nearly floor to ceiling, and the mottled charcoal grey carpeting has been forgone in favor of tile in muted earth tones. One large desk manned by an elderly ghoul sits in a lobby near the stairwell and beyond that is what looks like a common area. The walls of the common area are glass from the ceiling to about midway down. Through there, he can see that the overhead lights inside are out, along with a somewhat familiar figure clad in black slouched forward at the table at the far end of the room. He takes a few steps forward. 

From an unchecked corner, a ghoul rushes out to put a hand to Cirice’s chest, stopping him before he can get too close. The ghoul is older, by a handful of decades  _ at least _ , and much larger than the ghouls he’s used to associating with. Yellow-orange eyes peer out from behind the black mask, and long, gazelle-like horns spiral up from the hood of his uniform.  _ Definitely  _ a member of the high clergy. Wordlessly, the ghoul shakes his head.

Cirice leans to look around the broad ghoul, bringing up a hand to gesture down the corridor warily, as if not wanting to alarm the infernal creature. 

“I need to–” 

The ghoul gently pushes him back a little. Cirice steps back from the hand but looks up at the ghoul, narrowing his eyes challengingly.

“Emeritus the Third called. It’s urgent and I’d like to get through.  _ Please _ ,” he says, tacking the pleasantry on at the end as an afterthought. The ghoul narrows his eyes right back at him.

After what feels like minutes, he glances over his shoulder to the slouched Papa and then back to Cirice. The ghoul holds up one finger to his covered mouth, and stands aside to let him continue down the hallway.

“...Thanks,” Cirice says quietly. 

The ghoul nods and watches him go. When Cirice looks back after a few steps, he's gone again.

The common area doesn’t have a door on it, allowing even more light to filter in from the surrounding office. Tentatively, Cirice steps over the threshold, slowly approaching Emeritus the Second. He leans heavily on his elbows, head in his hands and palms pressed to his eyes. 

_ “Yes?”  _

His voice is hoarse, as if he’s strained it somehow, though hardly different from the same voice he had heard time and time again at rituals and sermons. 

“...Hullo, Papa. Didn’t know if you’d be in today.” 

Cirice receives a grumble in response. His typical grandiosity is nowhere to be found. It's only vaguely unsettling to see the man without his typical airs. 

“Rough night, huh?” Cirice asks softly, tentatively, as if he doesn't want to overstep a boundary he isn't sure exists. 

Papa looks up at him from behind his hands, white eye bloodshot and furious, rimmed in smudged black paint. 

“Very much so,” he grits out.

As expected, his nerves and spiking anxiety caused him to fumble, but seeing The Second so... normal, so human, ( _ so hungover _ ) took much of the fear out of the equation for him. Best not to clue him in on that part. Everyone knows Papa loved ruling through his strength and composure. Can't let anyone see the stress fractures forming underneath all that paint.

_ ‘What the hell are you doing? Stop bothering him and get on with it!’ _

Cirice clears his throat from behind his fist. 

“Okay. So. Emeritus the Third called. Asked me to pass on a message to you –” 

The Second turns his head so that both of his eyes are hidden behind his palms once more. A low rumble rises from his throat. Cirice thinks it might have been words. 

“He says there’s a gift arriving for you. He didn’t say what or when.”

Leaning back in his seat, shoulders hunched and feet kicked apart, Papa sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“Very well. Thank you for the warning.”

Cirice hovers awkwardly, unsure of whether he ought to wait to be dismissed or not. This wasn’t an official meeting or anything like that. Could he just go? Ultimately, he decides to show mercy and make himself scarce as quickly and quietly as possible, but before he does, he reaches into his shirt pocket. Two single dose packets of ibuprofen and dissolvable antacid powder are placed on the table and slid over toward the man. Only leaning partially over the table, Cirice leaves the offering a safe distance away so as not to be invasive. 

“Look like you could use these,” he says, voice still hushed but this time  _ much _ quieter than he’d intended, drawling awkwardly in his attempt to keep it level. He folds his hands behind his back and tries to discreetly straighten his spine and pull his shoulders back when The Second’s eyes flick over to him appraisingly.

His irritated gaze drops to the two proffered packets warily, finally reaching out for them. With his middle finger, he slowly drags them the rest of the way over. He turns them over in his palm to read the labels and waves Cirice off dismissively as best he can with the packets clutched in his curled hand, as if brushing away lint or a speck of dirt from his shoulder. After a slight nod and lean that might have passed for a bow, Cirice turns on his heel and hurriedly makes his way as far from the break room as he can get, feeling eyes on his back the entire way out. The few seconds it takes for him to get out of Papa’s line of sight and back to the stairs must be some sort of record.

Once he’s back to the stairwell, he allows himself to breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a bad interaction at all, all things considered. He can’t imagine that being disturbed with news of his brother’s mischievous and slightly worrisome warning while obviously trying to take a break was a particularly welcome experience on his end.  Still, he can easily come up with thousands of different ways in which it could have all gone horribly wrong, most of them by his own hands and idiot mouth. He considers himself lucky that neither Papa nor his ghoul standing guard bit his head off. It’s a miracle that anyone on the upper floors can get any work done at all, with Papa skulking around, and with no closed floor plan or solid walls to protect them from his watchful gaze. Cirice thanks every unholy deity he can recall that he won’t be having to report directly to the man himself anytime soon and sinks back into the comfort and relative safety of the lower floors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have to take a quick hiatus or at least spread out updates even further due to finals+holiday work schedule. We will see. Either way, that "eventual Papa II/OC" tag is finally coming into play. How exciting.


	13. Reasonable Doubt

Cirice never did get around to finalizing that paperwork. After ages of waffling back and forth on whether it was important enough to call attention to, he finally just told the clerk from the fifth floor that his writeup would go unfinished in favor of simply bringing his issues up as talking points at their next meeting. He tried to push the clerk’s remark that he’d already told Papa about an incoming request from his mind, covering it up by throwing himself into mindless busywork and doodling on printouts. It worked well enough in the few days that followed his discussion with the clerk, until Papa himself ventured out of his office and into the maze of desks on the lower floors. 

The rare sighting of the man was much less interesting than he thought it would be, especially after their last encounter. Papa had passed him by completely in favor of the front desk receptionist. They were close enough that Cirice could hear them speaking, but still far enough that he couldn’t tell exactly what their conversation was about. Cirice keeps his head down as he scratches something out on a sheet of loose paper tucked beneath an invoice. From the corner of his eye he can see the both of them gesturing; Papa out of habit and the receptionist directing his attention. Cirice allows his mind to wander, putting one half of his focus into sorting out a shipping error and the other half into continuing his mindless scribbling as a way to keep himself from becoming too distracted. 

He’s only brought back to reality by the unmistakable feeling of a presence looming over him. His movements stutter with hesitation as he looks up and comes face to face with skeletal paint and a piercing stare. Papa tilts his head as if to get a better look at the paper he’s partially shielding with his dominant hand. Belatedly, Cirice scrambles to cover his drawing with the invoice, and the invoice with his forearm. 

Papa grabs the lower corner of the paper between his thumb and forefinger. Despite Cirice’s best efforts at pinning it down, hand over hand over hand, it’s tugged until it slips away from him completely. A soft and drawn out whine of “no” makes its way out from behind clenched teeth. The graphite smudges with the pressure from his skin, but the drawing remains perfectly legible – a caricature of Emeritus Nihil as a nightmarish, wide eyed figure tearing into a smaller body with his teeth. 

Papa looms silently, staring at the paper held delicately in his hands. Those few seconds of waiting for a response feel more like a thousand years. It takes a little too long for Cirice to formulate something to say. All of his carefully calculated explanations are thrown out the second he opens his mouth. 

“I’m so sorry Papa, that’s really inappropriate, I know, I’m sorry, I mean no disrespect, it’ll never happen again, now if I could just get that back–” 

Cirice tentatively reaches out for the paper but retracts his hand when Papa moves to hold it up to his face for closer inspection. 

He freezes. 

This is it. 

This is how he dies.

“Goya? You are drawing Goya?” 

His hand clenches where it hovers uselessly between himself and his drawing. 

“...Yes?” 

“Hm.” 

Papa says nothing, only stares at the drawing for a few seconds longer – just long enough for Cirice to start frantically wondering whether he’s in the clear, or about to be faced with excommunication. 

“Get back to work.”

Instead of furthering the conversation, Papa turns on his heel and stalks off, drawing in hand. 

“Hey!”

If Papa is still in earshot to hear him speaking out of turn, raising his voice at that, he makes no indication of it. Disappointed and thoroughly humiliated, Cirice rests his chin on his desk, hands gripping his horns as he was wont to do when overwhelmed. He never sees the drawing again.

In the coming months, Cirice finds that more and more of his tasks involve going up to the top floor to drop off papers or retrieve files. Some of them seem to be the result of some sort of mixup in the mail room. How did that get delivered to the wrong floor? Why did this go to that department? While running a stack of misdelivered envelopes over to the publicity department, Cirice is distracted from plotting out the quickest route through the labyrinth of the ministry when he comes across Papa, pacing up and down the hallway. His footsteps echo and Cirice can barely make out the sound of him grumbling lowly to himself. Cirice slows to a stop, watching him from a distance. Torn brown paper and packaging materials litter the narrow hall. 

Papa pauses in his mumbling to stare at what Cirice now realizes is a massive bronze frame propped against the wall. Looking contemplative, he takes a few more paces side to side as if trying to view the gaudy thing from every possible angle, absorbing every detail. He taps a finger to his lips and walks to the other end of the frame once more. Before Cirice can contemplate making a break for it, Papa’s gaze snaps in his direction. 

“You, there,” he says sternly. 

Cirice’s shoulders raise to his ears, slinking back slightly. A hand is held out to him, finger curling to beckon him over from where he was busy trying to blend into the wallpaper. 

Standing directly in front of the thing, Cirice realizes that what they're looking at is a triptych painting depicting a brutal scene of slaughter and war and all manner of depraved acts. He feels his cheeks heat up the slightest amount and focuses on the ornate frame housing the canvases instead, though he can’t help the way his eyes drift back to the painting out of morbid curiosity. The longer he stares, the more elements jump out at him – huddled masses with their faces twisted in anguish, a horned woman driving a daggered heel into the flesh of a leashed man sprawled at her feet, starved and skeletal bodies, lurid sex acts in all combinations of gender. All of this, surrounded by lakes of fire and a blackened sky. Cirice tilts his head to the side as if it would help him see more clearly, eyes roaming over the canvases. Papa wordlessly mirrors the motion, hands clasped behind his back.

“The gift,” he says, and Cirice hums in response. 

It's ugly and gaudy and, best of all, there's not a hint of subtlety to be found. Cirice didn't consider himself a _prude_ , exactly -- he'd indulged many in a crude joke or vulgar song or exploitation film in his time, but to see so much packed into one space... It's horrible, and he wants to keep lookig at it forever. A strange look must cross his features. Not moving his head, but looking at Cirice from the corner of his eye, Papa gives a wry smirk. 

“No?” 

There's an amusement in Papa’s voice that makes it sound like he knows perfectly well how Cirice feels about the work. Straightening out, Papa looks over at Cirice properly, who shakes his head slowly anyway as he takes in more and more of the gory detail. 

“It's... _wow._ " He pauses, savoring the light chuckle that escapes Papa's lips. "I don’t wanna be overly critical, especially of a, uh, gift from your brother. It looks like a lot of thought went into… all of this,” he starts slowly, pausing once more to gather his thoughts. “But it's like... I feel a little weird about it. I don't hate it, but just cause something is gritty and dark doesn’t mean it’s automatically _good_. You know?”

If Papa feels any sort of way about Cirice’s response, it doesn’t show on his face at all. At least until he breaks into another quiet laugh, a rare smile gracing his usually stern features. 

“ _I_ think it looks like shit.”

Startled, Cirice snorts trying to stifle a laugh. He isn't surprised in the least that Papa has a critical eye when it comes to art, though the bluntness of it was unexpected. Papa’s smirk grows the barest amount as Cirice has to take a second to gather himself. 

“Should I… call to have this stored?” 

His expression drops to one of incredulity at Cirice’s hesitant question. 

“No! No, of course not. I am having this hung in the foyer,” he says as if it were obvious, tracing the filigree of the brass frame almost reverently with a gloved fingertip. 

“Really? Even if it looks like shit?” Cirice raises an eyebrow. Normally he would hesitate to question any decisions made by Papa of all people, but would he really display something that he hated just to be polite? Especially something so gaudy and tasteless? Or maybe he felt the same way that Cirice did; that the painting was like an awful car wreck that you couldn't help but stare at in an attempt to absorb every brutal detail.

“Oh, yes, of course! Perfect should Emeritus Nihil come to visit, no?” 

Papa drums his hands on the gaudy brass frame. He seems… excited. It’s a confusing sight to behold. Cirice decides it would be best not to question the family dynamic any further. For lack of anything better to do, he thumbs through the long forgotten stack of mail in his hand. When Papa looks over at the sound of paper fluttering, he reacts as if seeing the envelopes for the first time. Maybe he is. He gestures, hands splayed in the direction of the mail. 

“Ah! You were doing something, yes? I don’t mean to keep you.” 

“...Yeah. Mail mishap. Third time this month.” Cirice fans through them one more time. “Actually I think most of this is going to the top floor.” 

“Fantastic,” Papa says, and looks around at the pieces of crumpled brown paper littering the hallway. “Eh… Somebody will clean this up.” 

Seeming to ignore the small amused scoff the comment earns him, he gives a delicate, sweeping gesture as if ushering Cirice down the hallway. With a curt nod, Cirice continues on his way to the lift on the other end of the hall. He only makes it a few yards before an echoing set of footsteps gives him pause. 

He turns to see Papa only a foot behind, apparently having stopped when he noticed that Cirice turned to look at him. 

“Oh, you’re... coming with me?”

The man seems to quirk an eyebrow at Cirice’s visible trepidation.

“Why do you think I’m going to the top floor? To fetch a ghoul of course,” Papa says easily, as if the answer should have been obvious. 

He kicks at an errant piece of wrapping paper stuck to the toe of his shoe. Oh. So he isn't walking him up there. Merely walking extremely close behind and following the same route at the same time. Cirice gives a soft, suspicious “uh-huh” and continues on his way to the elevator, suddenly self conscious of his slouched posture, his uneven steps, even the squeaking of his shoes – unpolished and not sticking as close to uniform guidelines as they ought to. The assumptions of others based on his physical appearance were the last thing he wanted to care about, but little tendrils of self doubt constantly wormed their way into his brain regardless. 

The elevator is a rickety old thing. Not so ancient as to warrant its disuse or cause any worry from building inspectors, but old enough to have a folding partition-style brass gate instead of the slick, stainless steel doors seen in more modern buildings. Its age was still slightly offputting. Cirice typically stuck to the stairs, if only to avoid the uncomfortable lurch and jostle of the elevator car and awkwardness involved in handling the finicky old metal that squealed when moved. He presses the call button three times in quick succession as if it would make the car come faster – a nervous habit he never saw fit to break. 

While Papa stands directly in front of the brass gate, straight backed and the picture of calm and collectedness, Circe stands off to the side, shoulder nearly touching the wall. Listening to the faint clunking and rattling of the elevator’s descent, Cirice keeps his eyes downcast and counts the tiles between himself and the other man in front of him. 

When the car finally comes, Cirice waits politely for Papa to step in first. He doesn’t. Cirice raises his eyebrows at the other man and presses his lips into a thin line. Debating on whether he’s meant to say something, to explicitly invite him to step inside, he almost misses the subtle nod Papa gives him toward the door. The exchange would be almost comical if viewed from an outside perspective; trading unreadable expressions and usherings back and forth for what feels like minutes but is realistically only a few seconds. They stare at each other while Cirice attempts to project his mounting discomfort and frustration with his mind. He only gives up and takes the first step into the elevator when Papa opens his mouth as if to speak, cutting himself short at the movement. Before now, Cirice was unaware that a person could look both so stonefaced and self satisfied at the same time. 

Cirice shoots him back a look of his own, much to Papa’s apparent enjoyment. It’s a look of tired bemusement; narrowed eyes, furrowed brows, tightly lips in a crooked half-frown like he’s trying not to crack a smile at the awkwardness of it all. As if the invitation was at all necessary,  Cirice holds the gate open and stands out of the way for Papa to step in beside him. The only saving grace of the proximity is the fact that there’s enough room for another person to be able to squeeze in between them in the tiny elevator, though Cirice still has to lean awkwardly into Papa’s personal space and reach across his chest to slam the gate closed. He pointedly does not commit the slight upward curve of Papa’s lips to memory.

The elevator car rattles back to life when Cirice hits the button for the top floor. Neither say another word. The only sound is the whirring mechanics of the lift mechanism and the rhythmic ding of the bell indicating each time they pass a floor. 

Opening the gate again, Cirice mimics Papa’s earlier motion of ushering him forward with a slight bow and a sweep of the hand. He allows himself a self satisfied half smile when Papa fails to completely stifle the twitch at the corners of his mouth on his way out. Embarrassment and self consciousness only hits after the fact, once he’s a safer distance away from the man. He assumes that Papa is on his way back to his office, or perhaps to wherever it is that his personal entourage of ghouls reside, when he reaches the T-intersection leading away from the front desk. He did say he needed someone to clean up, after all. Cirice passes the intersection and unceremoniously dumps the armful of letters he’d been clutching all this time onto the secretary’s desk in a disorganized heap, not unlike how they were delivered in the first place. 

“Wrong floor,” he says conversationally, watching the secretary pick through the cards and envelopes. 

“ _ Why _ did this go to  _ you _ ?” They mutter under their breath, running a hand through their frizzy red hair in exasperation. 

Cirice says nothing and shrugs. Elbows on the desk, Cirice leans watches the mail get shuffled through and half-listens to the secretary chattering about how he needs to update the suite numbers in their system. Cirice begins rushing the conversation along by filling in the space with  _ uh-huh _ and  _ yeah _ where appropriate. 

“Make sure everything there actually belongs to you,” he says, trying to cut their explanation short. 

His flat tone betrays his feigned interest. Not that he’s  _ trying _ to be rude, but… they’re explaining how to change the addresses in the system as if it’s his fault they were misdelivered in the first place. Talking slow, like he’s stupid or something. It makes his arms itch. The feeling is easily quelled by curling his clawed fingers into the fabric of his sleeves, but he still has the urge to do more. He could easily leave, but didn’t want to risk being sent right back up if there was something wrong. Too much hassle. Cirice shifts so that he’s resting his cheek in one hand and tapping the nail of his index finger loudly on the surface of the desk with the other. 

“That’s not my job,” he says. 

The secretary gives him a look. Cirice chews on the inside of his cheek. 

“I’m just letting you know so you aren’t confused with the labels next time. Now,  _ this _ code stands for the building, that one’s always the same,” they continue, flipping to the next envelope and trailing their finger down the long sequence of numbers beneath the name of the cathedral. “See?  _ This _ one is the floor right there, okay?”

“Why don’t you tell it to me again a little slower, maybe I might understand it this time,” he snaps, voice cracking a little in the middle. 

Immediately, heat rises to his cheeks, spreading across the bridge of his nose. There’s a familiar huff from somewhere behind him – not the annoyed huff that he’d heard in the past, oddly enough. Despite the twisty feeling in his gut over the fact that he’s somehow already familiar with that sound, it makes the simmering anger beneath his skin chill.

When Cirice throws a look over his shoulder, Papa’s leaned against the corner, arms crossed. With mounting embarrassment, he realizes that Papa had been standing at the T-intersection that leads to his office for the duration of the interaction, just  _ listening _ . He isn't even looking at him. Cirice steels himself, squares his shoulders and gives the secretary a curt nod before excusing himself. On his way back to the lift, he takes a second to look at Papa –  _ really  _ look at him, eye to eye, clouded to mismatched – in an attempt to discern just what emotion the man was trying to convey. Or trying not to convey, maybe. Entertainment? Schadenfreude? Did it matter? 

Once the elevator gate is slammed and Cirice is safely inside, he can’t help but notice those eyes lingering on him through the gaps in the brass. He doesn’t look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmm. What do we think? Are we finally getting somewhere?


	14. Foot in the Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter is subject to future edits. I'm not sure how I feel about certain parts still, but I wanted to get it out there anyway.

The morning after the mail incident, Cirice was almost sick with anxiety. He was so sure that he’d receive a vicious chastising for getting mouthy with somebody technically higher up on the clergy food chain, in front of the Papa no less, but nothing ever came. And now here he was, nearly two full weeks later, alive and well. Relatively speaking. 

He  _ thought  _ he had a clear beat on what was and wasn’t expected of him by the church’s standards, only for those opinions and observations to be thrown into a tailspin by his apparent “medical condition”. Nowadays it seemed to him that one moment, everyone was expected to show nothing but the utmost respect for one another, and the next moment it was perfectly fine to go biting off heads over a misfiled document. Instead of taking his chances with imitation, Cirice decides it would be better to lay low and focus only on the tasks in front of him. Taking everything one hour at a time served him well enough, on work days at least. Break everything down into smaller steps, survive until the scheduled breaks and lunch hours, repeat. Try not to think about doing it over and over, nearly every day for the foreseeable future. 

Sitting on a wooden bench in a common area of the cathedral, Cirice shrugs off the existential dread like a baggy coat and tears into the wrapper on the sandwich he picked up from the shop. He starts grumbling and cursing in frustration when he realizes that the sandwich is wrapped like they didn’t even  _ want _ him to eat it. Pointed nails make easy work of the sticker sealing the cellophane, then the extra layer of softer plastic beneath that. Soon there’s a small pile of discarded plastic on the bench next to him, not counting the saran wrap he’d left on. At least the soft crinkling of the plastic helped to distract him from the growing din and echo of chatter at the other end of the chamber. 

Siblings and ghouls alike crowd around one of the many glass display cases that now houses a familiar gruesome triptych. Slouching forward so that his elbows rest on his knees, Cirice makes a soft  _ “huh” _ in realization and shoves a corner of his sandwich triangle into his mouth. 

While Cirice watches the crowd grow, a ghoulette he doesn’t recognize sidles up near the bench, one hand in her pocket and the other holding her phone. She doesn’t sit down.

“What happened? Is there a fight?”

Her voice is low and raspy, like stone grinding against stone. Or maybe like she just got done slugging back a shot of apple cider vinegar. Cirice looks over to her, taking in her overall appearance. Her uniform is pressed and clean but purposefully styled to look disheveled, the first few buttons of her dress shirt undone, complete with a bedhead that nearly hides the small pronged horns sprouting from her forehead. The ghoulette doesn’t  _ seem _ too much older than he is, though ghouls were known to be somewhat tricky when it came to that sort of thing. 

“Nah-uh. Papa put up a new painting he got in the mail,” he says, swallowing around what was left in his mouth with some difficulty. “Should check it out anyway though, I heard it’s cool.”

The ghoulette sighs through her nose and shoves the phone into her back pocket. 

“Ah. I was hoping for a fight.”

“I wish.”

Humming, Cirice takes another bite of his sandwich and looks down at the remaining portion held between his thumb and forefinger. It’s not  _ bad _ , but it’s not very  _ good _ either; kind of dry, and a little boring after the first bite. It was probably made the day before, or even the day before that. But not finishing it would be kind of a waste, right? Absently, Cirice uses his nails to start peeling the crust off of what’s left of the bread to be set aside on top of his plastic. With a soft “whoops”, Cirice watches as a particularly dry patch of bread crumbles and falls to the tile floor. 

“Excuse me? Ghouls?” 

The voice causes both Cirice and the strange ghoulette to look over, along with a few others milling around the chamber. A Sister of Sin with large glasses and hair greying at the temples stands a few yards away, arms crossed. 

“This cathedral is your home. Treat it as such. I hope you’re not planning on leaving that trash here when you get back to work.” 

She gives a pointed look to Cirice’s plastic pile, now adorned with several strips of bread crust. Both he and the ghoulette glance at each other through the corners of their eyes, expressions unchanging. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am,” Cirice calls back, sitting up and giving her a little wave that she doesn’t return. 

All he gets is an apprehensive look. Without so much as another word, she continues on her way down the hall. Cirice raises his eyebrows and mouths  _ “wow” _ to himself, turning his attention back to the sandwich that he’s still debating on finishing. He barely catches a few words of the ghoulette’s frustrated grousing. 

“Fuckin’...  _ Always _ gotta give the  _ ghouls _ shit. Once I learn how to light something bigger than an incense stick, it’s over for…” She stops mid-tangent and eyes Cirice up and down. “You aren’t a ghoul.”

Cirice shrugs.

“Doesn’t bug me,” he says. He picks up a piece of bread crust and shoves it into his mouth. “Get less questions, being a ghoul.”

Back at the office, Cirice weaves through the maze of desks to the door leading to the front lobby, where the secretary’s desk is. A coworker ( _ “Phos,” _ he recalls after a terrifying moment of studying her face) stops him with a hand on his arm as he passes her desk. 

“You’re going to the front?” 

“Yeah, I need to pull some older sermons to fix this new one. Pretty sure Judy keeps copies of them somewhere up there, and I wanted to have a look at the originals anyway, so…” he trails off, uncertain. Her hand buzzes like static where it still rests on his bare forearm. Distantly, his mind conjures up the feeling of licking a 9-volt battery. “Did you need something?”

“Oh! While you’re up there, you think you can grab the transcripts from these summoning rituals?”  Phos rifles through some papers and peels off a sticky note containing a handful of dates, holding it out to him. Gingerly, Cirice unsticks it from the tip of her finger and turns it over to get a better look. Clasping her hands under her chin, she smiles at him, charming sharp toothed grin and all.  “Pretty please?”

Cirice snorts. 

“Fine.” 

The secretary’s currently vacant desk faces away from the door connecting the front lobby to the first floor offices. When Cirice approaches, he’s slightly shocked to see a man waiting there. Judging by his outfit, Cirice assumes he’s from the mailroom. 

“Hi,” Cirice says quietly, shooting the man an unsure smile. 

The man is leaning one-handed against the counter, a rather large shipping envelope covered in various stickers and labels sitting next to his hand. He only glances up to catch Cirice’s eye for a split second. 

“Do you need help with anything?” He asks when the man says nothing. 

“Just waiting on somebody from the approved list to sign,” he says, drumming his fingers on the surface. 

Nodding, Cirice goes about his business rummaging through the filing cabinet with his back to him, pulling out papers and turning to set them at the edge of the desk. It’s silent save for the clatter of the filing cabinet drawers being pulled open and the rustling of dividers and paper; Cirice knows not to push conversation where it’s not wanted.

First he finds the documents and transcripts that Phos had asked for, repeatedly consulting the sticky note and mentally griping about the fact that the secretary had filed them by  _ type _ of summoning rather than the date of the summoning for whatever reason. The pile steadily grows until he has to shove them aside and start on a second one. Once those are accounted for, he locates the clean copies of Papa’s sermons, the ones with staff edits filed conveniently right behind. It isn’t difficult to find his own – they’re littered with doodles and notes shoved between lines and margins, the corners bent and folded more often than not. 

Though the delivery person remains silent, each time Cirice turns or happens to glance up, the delivery person is not-so-sneakily eyeing him. His gaze flickering from his horns, to his hands, back to his horns again, only to flick away at anything but Cirice when caught. A strange writhing feeling wells up from the pit of Cirice’s stomach. A feeling that makes him want to climb under the desk and curl up as tight as possible, as if there was something wrong and foreign about him. With a particularly harsh twist to the gut, he remembers that there  _ is _ something wrong and foreign about him. 

_ ‘Have to get used to it,’ _ he reminds himself.  _ ‘Just gonna have to get used to it.’  _

There’s a shift of movement from the hallway that leads down to the stairwell and elevator but all recognition of outside activity is drowned out the next time Cirice catches the man staring. His nails dig involuntarily into the flesh of his palms. 

“Hey, keep staring, dude. I might do a cool trick.” 

The words came out flat and deadpan, much less forcefully humorous than Cirice intended by far, significantly shifting the atmosphere from slightly awkward to downright uncomfortable. The delivery guy’s gaze finally meets Cirice’s eye on purpose, only to break contact shortly after. It bothers him more than if he never looked him in the eye at all. 

“S-sorry, man.” 

A sick chill runs up the back of Cirice’s neck and wraps around the back of his skull, only shaking it off when the movement in the hallways continues – footsteps approaching from the left, where the elevator is, crossing behind him and around the front of the desk where the delivery guy stands. Instead of acknowledging the figure, Cirice turns to pretend to continue looking through the filing cabinet, knowing that all of the documents he needs are already in a haphazard pile on the desk behind him. There's the scratching of pen on paper and just like that, the delivery man makes his awkward escape out the front door. The rummaging goes on for two full minutes. He’s leafed through the same folders and dividers several times now. The silence is borderline painful, the tension making his hands go clammy, until it’s finally broken. 

“I’m watching. What is the trick?”

Cirice squeezes his eyes shut and mouths a curse word to himself. 

“Making total stupid jackasses disappear.”  He turns and puts on a fake smile, face bright red across the nose and to the tips of his ears.  “Ta-da,” he adds with an unenthusiastic flourish of his hands, voice remaining perfectly flat. 

With that, he slams the filing cabinet shut and gathers up his pile of folders and paperwork in his arms.

“Now take a good look, I’m gonna do it again. Excuse me, please.”

Cirice manages to squeeze past Papa where he’s kind of blocking Cirice’s own escape route, papers crinkling in his shaky grasp. He only makes it halfway through the door back to the office.

“Priest,” Papa calls. “Come back here, would you?” 

Cirice lets a steady breath out through his nose and begrudgingly turns around to face Papa. He’s not looking at Cirice, seemingly waiting for him to walk over to stand in front of him while he tears open the thick cardstock of the envelope. Wordlessly, he examines the contents inside, nods, only acknowledging Cirice once he’s satisfied with whatever’s inside. Papa sets the envelope aside and gives Cirice a look that he can’t parse. It’s one of mild frustration, but no heat behind it. Concern? He tilts his head slightly. 

“...What have you got there?” 

As if he’d forgotten all about them, Cirice looks down at the papers crinkling in his deathgrip. The paper facing him is a printout of Papa’s own handwriting, adorned with Cirice’s typical scribblings and notes to self. 

“It’s just some older paperwork,” he says. “Ritual transcripts, sermons, that kind of thing.”

Papa tilts his head the other direction. The movement is so slight as to be unnoticeable but Cirice catches it nonetheless. 

“Was there an issue?”

“No, nothing. I think Phos is tallying up last year’s expenses, so–”

Papa leans in to peek over at the paper closest to Cirice, pulling it down with one finger to have a look for himself. 

“With the sermon, Father.”

“I just… Wanted to read through them again. See if there was something in here that I could use.” 

When met with a doodle of a winged stick figure holding a dagger, Papa quirks an eyebrow.

“Ah, marginalia? Following in the footsteps of the medieval scribes before you, I see.” 

Papa stops craning his neck to see the apparent “marginalia” when Cirice laughs – a halting and uneasy sound – to look him in the eye. The stern green and white gaze beneath a furrowed brow coupled with the admittedly intimidating skull paint  _ should _ make for an anxiety inducing sight but all it does is give Cirice pause. Makes him bite his tongue to quiet any more stupid sounds or ill thought out comments. Of course Papa takes notice. 

“You seem distressed, Father. Is there something the matter?” 

If he weren’t so focused on staying as still and calm as possible, the sight of that piercing white iris would have him straining to maintain his distance, gaze retreating to the floor or the corner of the room past Papa’s shoulder. Instead, Cirice maintains steady eye contact – unchallenging, unaggressive. 

“Nothing’s the matter, Papa,” he says, his attempt at a welcoming expression only showing through in the slight squint of his eyes. 

The minute change in expression on Papa’s own face is indiscernible. Cirice wonders if he’d be out of line to call it “amusement”, albeit an extremely mild form. 

“I am no prison warden. If you have something to say, then say it.”

He gives a sheepish smile and finally looks away, huffing. With a great deal of effort, Cirice untenses his shoulders and hands. The papers are battered and slightly damp at the edges beneath his palms now. 

Pushing through his trepidation at being seen as insulting or even insolent in front of the man that is effectively his  _ boss _ , Cirice slowly starts to piece his thoughts together. Papa waits patiently and says nothing. 

“It… I like being here. It used to be good, even if it was slow. Doing papers and getting to have a role in things. Getting to read the scripture before it’s really scripture. I liked that about it,” he begins. A small but genuine smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “Lately it’s… I don’t think it agrees with me anymore.” 

The explanation falls flat to his own ears and he finds himself hoping that Papa would cut him some slack with his uncanny perceptiveness. What else is he meant to say? ‘ _ My brain doesn’t work so good anymore, being a desk jockey is too hard _ ’? Humiliating. To say that he needs a change of scenery sounds so juvenile in his own mind, even though he knows it’s a reasonable enough explanation for a portion of his issues.

“This isn't a dictatorship, Father. No matter what the tabloids like to say,” Papa says. “No one produces good quality work when chained to a project. I don’t see any shackles on your ankle.” 

He says it so matter-of-factly, like it’s the easiest conclusion he’s ever come to. Cirice wonders what it’s like to have that kind of unrestrained, easy confidence. 

“Sometimes I think I would like to do something else, but I don’t know who or what will have me,” Cirice replies. “I didn’t exactly plan for any of this. Not really.”

Papa blinks at him, studying his face. He has one arm crossed over the other, a hand curled in a loose fist and brought up to his mouth as if deep in thought. He hums.

“Sorry, that sounded kind of–” 

“I understand.”

Such a simple statement is enough to get Cirice to look him in the eye again. Of course he doesn’t believe for a second that he’s the only person to have problems or feel unsatisfied, but it’s somewhat of a shock to hear it be stated so bluntly.

“How do you know if it’s…” Cirice starts, voice tapering off when he realizes that he spoke before figuring out all of what he wants to say. He takes a breath and organizes his thoughts. “How do you know if you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing?” 

Sighing, Papa drops his hand away from his face and grabs the elbow of his other arm where it’s still crossed over his body.

“Sometimes you don’t. Most times, in fact,” he says after a moment. “The papacy did not exactly line up perfectly with what my brothers and I had in mind, either.”  Papa shrugs a shoulder with a slight shake of the head.  “You just have to go for it, man.” 

Cirice laughs at that – genuine, voice rasping when it goes louder than it’s supposed to. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to dump all that on you, or pry, or anything. Um. Anyway, I’m working through it.”

“By scribbling on my manuscripts,” Papa says questioningly, traces of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The sound of paper crinkling punctuates the moment when Cirice remembers himself and who he’s speaking to. Even with the sudden embarrassment making it’s return, Cirice surprisingly doesn’t feel that all too familiar tightness in his chest or sick feeling in his stomach. Only the nerves that come with such a candid conversation with a familiar stranger. 

“Y-yes, well, about that–” 

A raised hand signals for him to stop before he gets too far into another stumbling apology. Papa actually  _ laughs  _ and Cirice has to remember to exhale fully before attempting to take a breath to calm himself. 

“I’m fucking with you. We all have ways of dealing with unwanted responsibilities. We will find something for you to do.” 

Papa grabs the envelope off of the desk, giving Cirice a slightly-too-hard clap on the shoulder as he brushes past. Where Cirice would normally bristle at contact, he instead stands frozen in place, mind racing.  After a beat, Cirice turns. His mouth is open as if to question Papa’s choice of words, only to realize with the slam of the heavy stairwell door that he’s already retreated to, presumably, the top floor of the building. Cirice could follow. There’s no way that Papa could get so far ahead as to be unreachable.

Instead, he returns to his own place in the lower office. The ritual transcriptions are handed off to Phos on the way back to his desk, where he sits in still silence for a moment before leaning forward to bury his face in his hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, how about that. It's almost like II is a person or something and not a 2-dimensional caricature of an evil and uncaring prick with no emotions, sense of humor or personality. Whoda thunk it.


	15. Distant Thunder Rumble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Tupelo" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Check it out. Preferably the live version.

The rainy season snuck up on the cathedral village closely following on the heels of a long stretch of humidity and overcast skies. Everything internal – anxiety, irritability, racing thoughts – was muffled and pushed into the background by the constant white noise of rainfall in a way that drowning it out with music couldn’t. No matter if it was a band he’d loved for years or if it was previously his obsession of the week, he found a new annoyance each time he tried. Whether it be repetitive lyrics, poor sound mixing, annoying instrumentals, the overload of audio muddying his already disorganized thoughts, or  _ just plain not feeling it,  _ he couldn’t settle for long enough to get through the first 48 seconds. A strange sense of dread had been squirming away in the back of Cirice’s mind as well as the pit of his stomach, but he found that the rain helped in the same way that a hot shower might ease away a sinus headache. 

Cirice forgoes his usual headphones in favor of sitting close by a cracked window with his day’s work or taking frequent walks outside, shielded by the eaves of the buildings. He comes back from his breaks or back to his quarters for the day splashed and soaked through from the shins down more often than not. For the most part, his coworkers are understanding – the constant revelation that sometimes, people will accommodate you if you’re honest to them gives Cirice a funny little punch to the gut – but some still talk amongst themselves.He vaguely remembers hearing the word “squirrelly” thrown out there and makes a mental note to look up what  _ exactly _ could be meant by that. They aren’t being  _ cruel _ , and even so, could he really be upset if what they were saying was more or less true? It doesn’t bother him as much some days, and he feels proud for the days that go by without an undeserved rude response or annoyed sneer. 

Twenty minutes before his lunch break, Cirice begins packing away his paperwork to either drop it off in its rightful place on his desk or to the others working in his department. He slides the window closed, already mourning the loss of the sound despite the fact that his shirt had long since gone damp on one side from the rain blowing in. From the corner of his eye, he notices a bit of movement and a boxy, black shape. This time, he doesn’t so much as flinch at the voice he had slowly been becoming more and more accustomed to hearing.

“You aren’t at your desk.”

“You know which desk is mine?”

Papa quirks an eyebrow at the damp spot on his shoulder and the droplets of rain still clinging to his forearm. 

“It’s a strange place to work, is all,” he says. Drawing attention to a stack of papers and a hardcover folder in his hand, he continues on. “Now. You know about  _ art _ .” 

It isn’t a question. 

“I… have a passing interest.”

Wordlessly, he thumbs through his papers and pulls out one, holding it up. It’s one of Cirice’s reviews of a sermon that he’d filed away some months back. When Cirice opens his mouth to express confusion, Papa turns the paper around to the back, showing him his own drawing of the main stained glass window on the front of the cathedral. 

“I  _ do _ look at the edited copies, you know. Very clever of you.” 

It isn’t an exact replica, most smaller details and space fillers having been omitted completely, but the more distinct features were left intact. Some portions have arrows pointing to them, labelled with vague interpretations in Cirice’s scratchy handwriting. Papa turns the paper back around so that he can look at it once more before returning it to the stack.

“This one is a little lopsided, but I understood the point,” he says, voice perfectly flat while he flips through a few more examples, though keeping them to himself this time. 

“I studied it for a little while, yes,” Cirice corrects himself.

“Fantastic.”

Papa opens the folder, leafing through its contents until he finds his target – a high quality copy of what looks to be a segment of some kind of faded and tattered scroll. He holds it out for Cirice to have a closer look. 

“I felt you may be interested in that. My father has sent over artwork relating to the church and the bloodline, hidden away for...” Papa pauses to think, looking up and off to the side. “Oh, however long my father has been alive, I suppose.” 

Cirice gingerly takes the paper from him, at first admiring it from a distance and then slowly bringing the page closer and closer until it’s inches from his nose, taking in every detail. 

“Wow. Yeah, this is…” He clears his throat at the sound of his own airy, awestruck voice and lowers the paper and taps the large symbol in the center with a finger. “Um. What’s this mean?” 

Papa gives him that smug little hum that may well be an indicator for a stifled smile at this point. Mentally, Cirice chides himself for reading too far into the behavior of somebody he barely knew. 

“Well. We don’t know.” 

He says it so matter of factly, in a voice that one might even call jovial, if they weren’t concerned with how Papa would take being called jovial. 

“...I see.”

Cirice turns the paper 90 degrees to read the long, flowing banner looping around the top half of the page. It doesn’t help any. The whole thing is in Latin. 

“Not yet, anyway,” Papa continues. “Copies and other documents were sent to the others, as well. My father is adamant that we look into this. See if we can make any sense of it. However, I felt, with your interest...” he trails off with the slightest trace of a hopeful, upward lilt in his voice. 

It catches him so off guard that Cirice nearly lets the paper slip through his fingertips in the middle of trying to decipher whether that was supposed to be a V or a U in the script. Eventually, the wires in his brain connect and he’s able to form a sentence after a brief pause spent staring wide eyed at the man. Cirice smiles, but it’s more of a nervous grimace than anything. 

“Papa, with all due respect, you could get _ anyone _ to do this–”

“But I am not getting anyone to do this. I am getting _ you _ to do this.”

Cirice doesn’t rise to the challenge implicit in his tone and expression, instead taking the folder being held out to him. The folder itself is rigid and heavy, and inside are a few thin fragile sheets crumbly and yellowed with age sandwiched between sheets of thick, clear plastic. In the inner pocket that Papa had previously thumbed through are more printed and enhanced copies of the same images. Some copies are high contrast, some in black and white, the levels adjusted, inverted… Each copy gives an entirely different view of the faded original. 

Rubbing a hand over his mouth, Cirice hides the little upward quirk of his lips when he nods, eyes glued to the various pages and nearly missing the way that Papa’s eyes scrunch up at the corners when he smiles in response.

“You will like this sort of thing, I think. It’ll go quickly. Good thing; I would like that these get back to my father _posthaste_.”

Cirice glances up from where his eyes had drifted back to the paper, once again distracted and concerned with the U/V issue.  _ The letter U couldn’t have come into use that recently, right? _

“Urgent?” 

“Not terribly,” Papa says with a noncommittal shrug. 

Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Cirice squints at him with a tilt of his head. 

Papa looks him dead in the eyes and says, “The sooner this is finished for him, the sooner I will be left alone.”

_ “Ah.” _

While Papa goes on about how exactly Nihil had come into possession of these pieces – something about theft and hired ghouls, Papa himself is foggy on the details – Cirice cautiously leafs through the original pieces, sandwiched in their plastic sheets. The printout he had been looking at appears to be a blown up copy of the original, itself appearing to be part of a matching set. 

Both pieces depict two humanoid figures standing on some sort of pedestal, one with a looping banner running the length of the top and the other with a similar banner down below. The figure in the first piece is posed with their left hand over their chest and right hand raised high, their head turned upward and to the side to face a large bloom in their palm. A vine coils down the length of their arm, snaking out of sight. The figure in the second piece is posed similarly, though with their right hand to their chest and their left arm and head angled downward. A complex series of spindly roots connects their palm to the earth. Behind their heads is a ray of light, similar to those commonly seen in Christian artwork, though with a complex geometric shape in the center of each. Cirice’s eyes follow the contours of the shape in the center of the sunburst. After counting the fifth point, his eyes get lost and he instead turns his attention back to Papa. 

“Alright, well. I’ll get right on that, I guess,” he says, sounding a little hesitant. Should he really be trusted with something like this? Before Cirice can do or say anything else, Papa holds up a hand. 

“Ah, I should mention,” he starts, clasping his hands briefly and then setting one on top of the folder. Cirice follows the movements of his fingers fanning out. “These must stay close. Contact with them is to be supervised to protect their integrity. They are very delicate, and we do not know what is in them.”

Admittedly, Cirice is a bit perturbed by the idea of supervision but understands the necessity, even if it makes him feel a little like a bug under a microscope. 

“So if I can’t take ‘em anywhere, where am I  _ supposed _ to work on these?”

”Where I can keep an eye on you, priest. My office?”

There's a challenging glint in his eye.

“That works for me,” Cirice says. 

Papa grins. 

“Good. It's going to have to.”

  
  


Papa’s office is somehow both as expected and a pleasant surprise. Floor length windows span almost the entire back wall behind his desk, the dark polished wood of which is in itself is a thing of subtle elegance. The shallow nicks and scratches around the carving of the legs and corners only speak to its age. Where Cirice had for whatever reason assumed there would be a lack of personality, he found a few potted plants of varying sizes scattered around the room in corners or on shelves. In the corner next to a window and behind his desk is a decently expensive looking sound system with a sizable collection of 8-tracks, cassettes, vinyls, CDs… If this is what he keeps at the office, his full collection in his living space must be something impressive. In the front corner of the room to the left of the door is a low coffee table with two dark leather loveseats on either side and a circular, cream colored area rug. Against the wall behind the furthest loveseat is a tall bookshelf, which Papa immediately begins pulling books from while Cirice hovers awkwardly by the loveseat nearest the door. 

The books are placed in a neat stack arranged by size in the center of the table. A proper notepad is offered to Cirice from one of the drawers of Papa’s desk, but Cirice politely declines and instead pulls his familiar, beat-up sketchbook and chewed up ballpoint pen from his bag. Amazing where you can find comfort. 

“What am I meant to be looking for, exactly?” Cirice asks, only sitting down once Papa has moved a good distance away. Leaning heavily into the armrest, he shoves himself against the corner and hooks an ankle over his knee.

“Oh, anything, really. As much as you can figure,” Papa says. He traces his fingers over the handles of a serving tray holding an assortment of teabags on top of a side table as he speaks. “Symbols, text, icons, sigils, even color connotations.” 

He turns his head to Cirice and gestures to the table. After a brief shake of his head in response, Papa picks out a nondescript plastic packet and silently prepares a cup for himself. 

To Cirice’s mild disappointment, Papa gets back to his own work pretty much immediately after supplying Cirice with the appropriate texts and choosing something to listen to. What comes as absolutely no surprise is that Papa listens to music as he works. What does, however, is the  _ kind  _ of music he listens to. Cirice had expected classical – something dramatic and elegant to go along with his high image. What he gets instead is an ambient, bass-heavy drone and low distorted vocals playing softly (or as softly as they can be) through the speakers of Papa’s stereo. Cirice is almost positive that if turned loud enough, it would make the floorboards shake. 

With only his vague directions, Cirice dives right in to trying to figure out just what these images were trying to say. At first it’s to take his mind from the strange terror-slash-thrill of sitting in Papa’s office, but soon enough he loses himself in the various diagrams in the texts, scribbling down citations and page numbers. He begins by making note of all obvious symbols – the flower, the halos, the roots, the positioning of the hands. For ease of reference, he copies the text from the banners at the top of the page and only then does he realize that the text wasn’t Latin to begin with. The characters more closely resemble runes, but not any that he’s familiar with. After a cursory scan through the offered texts, Cirice circles the phrases so as not to lose them and decides to move on to the strange shape in the halos. Thankfully he could write lightly on the copies, making tracing the tangents and counting points much easier than before. What he had originally thought was a single fourteen pointed star was really two seven pointed stars layered on top of one another, offset by a couple degrees. As luck would have it, there were no shortage of seven pointed stars present in the book sprawled open across his lap.

Clearing his throat and sitting up straighter than he already had been, Papa cracks his neck, flexing his writing hand. Papa slowly nods his head to the harsh, booming drumbeat while looking over whatever it is that he’s working on. Cirice stares, chin in his hand and elbow on his knee, hand hovering over where he was making note of various types of multi pointed stars on an already crowded corner of the page. Still stretching his hand and rotating his wrist, he looks over at Cirice, who raises his eyebrows as if waiting for Papa to give him some sort of direction. 

“Is there an issue?” 

“I was just thinking,” Cirice says as he slowly shifts his attention back to comparing stars. Leaning in, he squints at what looks like writing between two of the lines.

“Ah. You would get through your work much faster if you spent less time staring, priest.”

Cirice’s blood chills in his veins where he has to consciously will away any sense of irritation. 

“My  _ name  _ is Cirice.”

Ignoring Cirice’s challenging tone and not-quite-glare, Papa throws him a knowing, tight-lipped smile. 

“So, who did these exactly?” Cirice asks after a pause, not taking his eyes off of the phrase he’s copying down. “Do you know?” 

Sighing, Papa looks off and rubs a hand against his cheek. His eyes flick back and forth as a low hum rises from his throat. The paint surprisingly doesn’t smudge. 

_ ‘He must not be as heavy handed as he seems, then _ ’, Cirice muses. 

“An acolyte in the 1900s, I believe. At least, that is what I was told.”

Cirice puts his pen down and straightens out, leaning into the backrest of the loveseat. 

“I expected… I don’t know what I was expecting,” he lies. Truthfully, Cirice half expected Papa to come out with the whole “ _ my father’s father _ ” spiel that Nihil seemed to so love when giving sermons. “He’s very protective of his secrets then, isn’t he? Your dad, or- um. Wait. Your... his... eminence? Uh…” 

Cirice presses his lips closed before he can say something any more foolish or insulting, scratching his eyebrow to give himself an excuse to look away. When Papa laughs, Cirice nearly jumps out of his skin. The laugh is more like a bark, one loud  _ ha! _ and a silent, shoulder-shaking chuckle following after. 

“There is no need for such overformality. Ehh, not in here at least. You may call him Nihil, though I am sure if he were here, he would appreciate the… _ respect _ .”

Despite trying his best to keep his face neutral, Cirice smiles and ducks his head. He busies himself by flipping to the next page of the dense tome on the coffee table, coming face to face with an early 17th century rendering of a demon.

“So _ His Unholy Excellency _ never really caught on, huh?” 

“No, no. Too wordy.”

Papa waves a hand, brushing him off to turn in his chair to change the song. End of conversation, he guesses. Wordlessly, they both retreat back to their respective tasks. He finds himself kind of nodding along to the beat of the song without realizing. 

It’s easy enough to get lost in the rhythm of flipping through pages and scribbling down anything that looks important. Now that he’s given time to actually scrutinize the work he’s blown away by how dense it all is. Shapes layered upon shapes, sigils so familiar as to get on his nerves when Cirice can’t immediately track them down in the books, banners overlaying what appear to be diagrams depicting ritual practices. There doesn’t seem to be a single inessential mark or symbol. Or maybe, it was purposely designed to appear that way. There’s always the possibility that there really isn’t a special meaning behind what’s being depicted and everyone is wasting their time by futilely trying to decode pure aestheticism. An archaic, more sinister form of the palmistry posters sold at craft shops. 

Forcefully shoving that worry aside, Cirice soon loses himself in his work. All four books given to him off of Papa’s shelf open on the table and across his lap, cramming as much pertinent information in disorganized clusters as the pages of his sketchbook can hold. He’s half considering starting the process of shifting what’s balanced on his legs over to the table and taking a break to head back over to the bookshelf when Papa lowers the volume on his stereo. 

As if in tune with Cirice’s own need for an interruption, Papa stretches in his chair, groaning softly. He watches Papa cross the office and approach the low table, sitting down on the loveseat opposite Cirice. 

“Show me what you have so far,” Papa says, leaning forward. 

He rests his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. It would have been easier on him if he’d sat down next to Cirice, no need to crane his neck, but he's grateful for the distance. Being someone's focus made him nervous.

“Well,” Cirice sighs, smoothing a hand over his hair. “It isn't much so far. A lot of alchemy stuff, similar to what we use now, just with older symbols. I gotta go find some more reference books for some of these sigils, too. But um…” 

Cirice shuffles through some of his notes for a moment, pulling out a sheet from where he’d paperclipped it to a printout. 

“It's kinda faded, but there’s words, see? Hidden between these two lines?” 

He taps the space between two parallel lines with a nail and Papa tilts his head to see. Sure enough, there’s a line of text disguised as decorative page filler. 

“They’re  _ all over the place _ . I don’t even think I found it all. But I wrote down as much as I could find, I can probably run it through a translator or… something. If one exists.” 

“Let me see?” 

At the sight of Papa’s outstretched hand and the gentle request, he gives Papa a look and reluctantly hands over the sketchbook. Papa smiles fondly at him, and Cirice returns it before he scrapes together enough sense to think it could be dangerous to do so. Papa looks back down to the papers and something nasty worms itself around in Cirice’s stomach – something like fear, or dread, and something else he can’t exactly put a name to. He wanted Papa to smile all the time and for him to never do it again. Not knowing what to do with his hands after that, he takes to picking at his nails a little while Papa scrutinizes his work so far. Cirice suddenly finds himself worrying about his sloppy penmanship or the little scribbles of demons and ghouls in the corners from when he got bored or distracted, and digs a nail hard into his cuticle. Hopefully Papa won't take him less seriously for that. Won't regret his decision and dismiss him back to his proper floor.

“Looks to be an archaic form of Ghoulish,” Papa says after a moment, as if it were obvious. And maybe to him, it was. “The hand is similar,” he adds, pointing out certain characters as if it would clear anything up. Cirice assumes he means the general shape and makeup of the characters, instead of the words themselves.

Without another word, Papa flips the sketchbook closed and places it in front of Cirice on the table. Then he leans forward, resting an elbow on his knee and slides the folder from Cirice’s hands, closing that as well. He holds it up when he speaks. 

“That can wait. You can pick this up where you left off at the top of the work week. Yes?”

Cirice stares at him for a brief moment, eye meeting eye. 

“...Yes. Sounds good.”

Papa nods at him. 

The man stands and stashes the folder away in a desk drawer while Cirice cleans up and gathers his things. The books are handed off to Papa to be put back into their proper places – he correctly guesses that Papa is a stickler for the organization of his bookshelf and watches him put each book back from the exact spot he pulled it from. 

With his bag slung over his shoulder, Cirice anxiously shifts foot to foot, waiting. Once the books are back in place and everything is exactly as it had been, Papa turns and pats him on the shoulder. His hand lingers on his shoulder when he speaks. 

“You’ve worked hard. Be prepared to do it again.”

“Of course.”

The door is shut heavily behind him with little more fanfare the second he’s past the threshold. 

It isn’t like Cirice ever spent his days off doing anything useful or fulfilling; he resolves to instead make a quick trip to the library.

  
  


Already regretting not throwing on an extra layer before leaving, Cirice hurriedly makes his way from his quarters to the ornately decorated library. The walk itself isn’t so terrible, aside from the occasional chill running through him when the wind picks up. All he does is wrap his jacket tighter around himself and pick up the pace, wondering whether it would be worth it to turn back and grab something heavier. The hood of his favorite, well-worn jacket doesn't even go all the way over his head anymore due to the dark grey, triangular horns curving out of his skull. Ultimately he decides to just deal with it, seeing as he was already nearing the halfway point. Cirice veers off the cobblestone path and cuts through the slightly overgrown grass in an effort to shave a few minutes off of his walk. 

Soon he’s hurrying up through the set of pointed arches of the library, making a wide berth around the clusters of Siblings and ghouls congregating on the front steps and instead offering a polite nod or almost-smile to the few people he recognizes. Past the open doors, the library is huge and sprawling, smelling strongly of dust and furniture polish, perfume-like and heavy. Instead of a full second floor, there are overlooking balconies running the perimeter reminiscent of a theatre, packed with more shelves that are accessible by their own staircases. 

Cirice takes a moment to get his bearings before heading over to one corner of the library. Pulling out his phone, he scrolls the list of subjects he needed to look up, scanning the little placards labelling the shelves. Seemingly every topic was available, from classic to modern to postmodern literature, academic texts in subjects Cirice had never even heard of before, pulpy romance paperbacks… Usually he kept to his comfort zone and hovered around the contemporary fiction sections, sitting on the ground against the shelves to read whichever novella caught his eye before putting it back and moving on to something else.

After a few minutes of wandering the shelves, he finds the cluster of shelves and carts housing books on language and linguistics. He sighs to himself, anxiety abating some now that he has some direction. The next half hour is spent flipping through books on dead and archaic languages, hoping to find even a scrap of information on the various Ghoulish dialects. With each footnote or vaguely worded paragraph, he finds another book to expand on the ideas presented. Soon he has a stack of five books weighing heavy in his arms and he has to find an empty table to scour through them before going back in for more.

The only thing that closely resembles the text he found hidden in the printout is liturgical ghoulish; apparently a form of ghoulish used only within the context of rituals and traditional rites, differing widely from forms used in conversation or literature. At least that would explain how Cirice couldn’t recognize it at all despite becoming somewhat familiar with the harsh angles and flowing curves of the written language. 

He writes down the small bits of relevant information offered by a majority of the books he picked out, setting the one that goes more in depth aside to check out. Using the larger book’s contents as a guide, he slowly picks apart the symbols and terminology and arranges them into something that at least somewhat makes sense. There are more than a few references to botany throughout the painting, as it turns out, though nothing naming any specific plant species or even the point of them being present. The blossom in the first figure’s palm doesn’t even seem to match up with one he could find in books or online. Distractedly, Cirice draws a little plant in his notes while turning the idea over in his head that it may just be a fabricated plant for art’s sake. 

Cirice traces the worn edges of the book’s stained leather cover with his nails. The same jittery feeling that had been bothering him throughout the week was slowly growing more intense the longer he stayed out of his apartment. The library was thankfully quiet for the most part, making for a much easier time of calming himself by focusing on the texture of the book cover under his fingertips and leaning back in his chair to stare up at the high peaks of the ceiling every so often. His eyes run the length of the intersecting lines of the ribbed vaults for a minute or two until he finally shakes the feeling and gets up to replace the rest of the books on the shelves. 

With each trip between the shelves and the table he’d settled in at, the realization dawns on him as to just how densely packed everything in that painting was. It feels like there’s a new detail branching off into an entirely different avenue of research with every glance back to his notes or the printouts stuck in the back cover of his sketchbook. It’s almost enough to be overwhelming. Instead of getting too into his own head about just how much there is in the painting and how much of the library there is to go through, he writes down anything he thinks might be relevant on an available empty corner of his notes. For the time being, all of his books except the one he singled out go back, and he makes his way to the Sister tapping away on a keyboard at the reference counter. 

“Hi, uh, do you… where’s the section on religious anthropology? Please?” He asks, unsure of if he should keep his voice down or not. He already had an issue with mumbling and projecting as it was. 

The librarian directs him to a second floor loft, pointing out the specific shelves that should ideally have what he’s looking for.

“And iconography should be over there too, right?”

“On the wall shelf in the back.” 

Cirice nods and scribbles down the appropriate reference number before he can forget. He takes a few steps away from the reference desk, looking over his notes only to turn right back around when his eye hits a term he’d noticed cropping up a few times in different books. 

“Oh yeah, and do you have anything on, uh,” he starts, relocating the term to make sure he doesn’t misread it aloud. “Anything on early 1900’s herbomancy?”

The librarian blinks at him and gets to typing. Cirice clears throat awkwardly, shifting around from foot to foot and crinkling the notes in his hands a little bit. While Cirice debates on asking if there’s a limit on how many books one person can take at a time, the librarian turns the monitor so that Cirice can see.

“We have one,” she points out the title and authors of the book from a sea of other names listed on screen, along with a decimal number. “Right through there.” She then points out a corner of the library, to the left of a larger reading area. 

Cirice nods his thanks and turns, almost bumping into another person waiting their turn close behind him. With a stammered apology and a distinct avoidance of eye contact, he hurries off to find the herbomancy book before he inevitably gets lost in the loft for the rest of the day. 

The one book is located easily enough; the cover is a light, dusty green and the pages inside are brittle and yellowed, with multiple lengths of leather cord attached at the spine to serve as markers. Flipping through it, Cirice realizes he’d  _ definitely  _ need some sort of additional reference for whatever the hell was going on in the sprawling diagrams inside. A handful of alchemical symbols jump out at him, along with a few characters he’d come to recognize as being parts of summoning rituals, but for the most part it’s dense and indecipherable. He tucks the book under his arm and climbs the stairs to the second floor balcony to see if the reference books on iconography bear any fruit. 

At some point during his hours of digging and copying down information, the overcast sky finally broke, pouring down rain in sheets. At any other time, the sight of droplets carving lines through the condensation on the windows would have been a welcome sight. All he can think about right now is how the books would get ruined on the trek all the way across the abbey, even under the safety of his jacket or in his bag. 

_ ‘It can only get worse from here.’ _

With his small pile of books sufficiently picked through and sorted by assumed usefulness on the table, he steps out onto the front stoop of the library and scrolls his contacts for a familiar number. 

It rings four times before the Chauffeur picks up with a cheerful, albeit muffled greeting through a mouthful of food. 

After a short laugh and a greeting of his own, Cirice asks, “Are you free right now?” 

There’s a shuffling and crunching sound, and then the Chauffeur’s voice coming in clearer on the other line. It’s still difficult to hear over the rain, but in a short exchange of words, Cirice and the Chauffeur agree on Cirice waiting the ten to fifteen minutes it’ll take to be picked up inside the library where it’s at least dry.Cirice uses the extra time to get his notes sorted and bring his stack of books up to the front desk to be checked out. Thankfully, the librarian says nothing about the amount of them, only reminds him of the date she wrote down on the old yellow card tucked in the cover of each. 

He fully intends on using his time waiting to continue his research, possibly even making a dent in it before having to report back to Papa’s office, but instead finds his mind wandering to library practices outside the church. Was the set limit of books you were allowed to check out only so low for the libraries that  _ he’d _ been to? Maybe limitations had something to do with how well funded the library was in general. Then again, that one really big nice library in the city only let people check out two books at a time, last time he heard. Was it different here only due to the church’s insistence on the freedom of knowledge and information? 

Cirice is so busy drawing spirals on his notes and thinking about what the church’s budget must be like and whether they have to replace many books that he almost yelps at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. He looks above him and into the familiar eyes of the Chauffeur, his mask and vestments speckled with water droplets, hood pulled lower than usual. Cirice’s eyebrows furrow when the Chauffeur laughs, leaning back and shoulders shaking. 

“ _ Fuck _ , man!” Cirice hisses. 

“Sorry! I  _ said  _ your name, you didn’t answer me.” 

“No, I… it’s fine,” Cirice says, waving a hand and giving him an unsteady smile. “Let me just pick all this shit up and we can go.” 

The smaller of the books, herbomancy and one of the books on iconography, are able to fit into his back with his sketchbook and any loose papers he’d scrawled over throughout the day. The other three are either too large to fit or would be too heavy to go in without throwing him severely off balance. Panic sets in for a split second when he can’t find the book on liturgical ghoulish, only for it to flood away in a rush just as fast when he sees it in the Chauffeur’s hand. He flips through a random page and seems to grimace under his mask. 

“What’s this for?” He asks, eyes scanning every page he thumbs past.

Cirice huffs a laugh.

“So, about that, uh. Papa actually asked me to look into a few things.” 

The words feel as foreign as they sound. 

“Like… As a favor?”

“ _ I guess _ ,” Cirice says, stacking the books and sliding them to the edge of the table to be scooped up into his arms. “I don’t know, he wants me to look at art? And tell him what it means? He saw my stupid drawing and thought he knew what I was doing.” 

“You look like you kind of know what you’re doing. You found books,” the Chauffeur offers, his last statement sounding more like a question. He closes the book and plops it on top of the stack in Cirice’s arms. 

“I’m good at bullshitting,” Cirice says. “And anyw–” 

Before he can finish the thought, the librarian that checked his books out gets their attention. 

“ _ Ghouls _ .” 

Both Cirice and the Chauffeur turn at the collective name. 

“You can quiet down or you can step outside,” she says sternly. Cirice bites his lips in embarrassment and the Chauffeur raises a hand as if in apology, letting it fall limply to his side when she only gives him a pointed look. He then looks back at Cirice and tilts his head, the way most masked ghouls have taken to doing to express confusion. Cirice shrugs.

“Nothin’ wrong with being a ghoul.”

“Whatever you say,” the Chauffeur says. “C’mon, car’s out front.” 

Just standing underneath the overhang of the library, Cirice’s shoes are soaked down to the socks. The rain had gotten so heavy in the short amount of time he spent waiting that at this point it was like harsh radio static. Cirice tucks the books into his jacket while the Chauffeur yells and laughs a little, rushing down the steps with a repetition of “ _ hurry, hurry, hurry! _ ” as he does so, despite already being soaked in a matter of seconds.

Looking at the car down by the curb, Cirice feels a little uneasy watching him already unlocking the driver’s side door, fumbling with his keys. 

“Hey,” Cirice projects his voice over the sound of the rain but falters a bit at a lack of a name. “You’re gonna take me straight home, yeah?”

The Chauffeur looks over, shielding his eyes from the rain with his hand like a visor, his mask not doing much to help with the rain coming in at such an angle. 

“Unless you needed to stop off somewhere. You okay?”

The rain is coming down so hard that it stings the skin of his face, leaving little burning pinpricks in its wake. Even from such a short distance, it’s hard to see each other clearly. 

“... Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright. Nevermind.”

Without another word, the Chauffeur gets inside his car and unlocks the passenger side door, throwing it open for him to climb in.   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, finally, finally, **fucking finally.**


	16. <

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Always the optimist.

  
  


Over the last few days, they’d had somewhat of a breakthrough concerning Nihil’s paintings. While he’d never been privy to the more intimate details of the process, Cirice assumed that the ritualism depicted in the pieces had to do with summoning earth ghouls. Many of the symbols in the paintings appeared to be archaic forms of those in more modern texts that he’d seen while helping to prepare for the very same rituals. However, after constant study and decoding and translating, as well as with Papa’s input, it seemed to him that the paintings had more to do with  _ humans _ harnessing the same energy and sway possessed naturally by earth ghouls. Not just over the element of earth itself, but the power of growth and creating life. The thought made Cirice nervous. Or maybe he just thought it did. 

He looks up from where he’s mindlessly doodling looping spirals over his notes and chews on the end of his pencil, agitated.

It was easier to stay together when his mind was fully occupied and being constantly flooded with new information. He had no choice  _ but  _ to stay together, between the notes and the white noise and Papa’s persistent hawklike gaze from across the room. (Or sometimes, on more exciting days, from across the table.)

Sitting out here, alone in the shaded seating area of the cathedral garden, it occurs to him how much more difficult it’s been to maintain his composure outside of work. After hiding away in his apartment and the various office buildings for so many days, he figured some sunlight and fresh air would do a little bit of good. Sometimes his vision would twist nauseatingly, halos of color floating in his peripheral vision. As long as he kept his head down, he was able to get through the day without incident. 

The metal tube holding the pencil’s eraser in place pops off and Cirice squeezes it between his canines until he feels the metal bend in. Little bits of eraser crumble in his mouth. 

Last week in the car, the Chauffeur asked him if he was still going to his “talk meetings”, eyes flicking rapidly between Cirice and the empty road ahead. Cirice curled up around his pile of library books, clothes soaked to the skin. He mumbled something in the negative, something dismissive and minimizing. When the Chauffeur mimicked his own disinterested noises back at him, Cirice relented. 

“They’re just boring, is all.”

The Chauffeur nodded, hummed, checked the mirror before signalling and turning at the intersection. 

The meetings were useless. 

He’d only ever gone to two, but that was all he really needed to make a decision. The group was almost entirely made up of  _ “loved ones affected by” _ instead of the  _ “those living with” _ that he’d anticipated. Full offense intended, they made him sick, and angry. Only much later would he feel an equal amount guilty for any less than kind thoughts that ran through his mind while listening to the “share circle”. Sure, the “loved ones affected by” needed somewhere to talk about how  _ hard _ things were for them, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be around for it. 

Upon telling his doctor his opinion, she heaved a sigh and insisted instead on Cirice either coming in or at least calling every month to check in with her directly, if only to establish a baseline. And he did so. Soon those appointments dwindled down to every other month, and finally she felt comfortable enough to the point where the next check-in wasn’t for several months. He flips to a clean page and leaves a note to himself to give the doctor a call when he has the time. 

A sudden shout derails Cirice’s train of thought completely. Several yards away, he notices a mixed group of Siblings and ghouls seated at a stone table of their own and talking amongst themselves. One member, a ghoul, seemed to be the owner of the one voice that was much louder and carried further than anyone else’s. Cirice digs around in his bag for his headphones. 

The daily rainstorms slowly petered out into a lighter, more infrequent drizzle, leaving everything damp and grey – pleasant, but not nearly enough to muffle sound. Cirice instead took to pulling up atmospheric background noise videos on his phone while outside, and running up his water bill listening to the sink or shower while at home when things got too distracting.

Head dipping back to the array of notes scattered on the stone surface of the table, Cirice rolls the metal eraser holder around in his mouth and connects two points with an arrow. Hopefully the result of his attempted translation wasn’t too mangled. There was a lot more to translating liturgical Ghoulish into English than originally anticipated – first, everything had to be written out phonetically, then that went into conversational ghoulish, then he had to work through whatever Latin loanwords were littered throughout, and then– 

Even with his phone at full volume, he can still hear the ghoul speaking between the gaps in the rain. He’s loud and rambling and swears every other word.  _ Crass.  _ Cirice wasn’t some kind of prude about cursing – he’s in the habit of supplementing his vocabulary with a few colorful words himself. Today, however, it hit him in a way that made his pulse quicken and nerves churn his stomach. Not wanting to pack up all of his things and leave, he closes the rain video and scrolls through his playlists. He settles on something loud and harsh to drown out everything else, but with a beat he could focus on. 

Pressing his palms over his eyes until all he sees are pulsating colors blooming out of the dark, Cirice takes a deep, stabilizing breath. Somehow, probably because of his hyperawareness of the ghoul’s presence, he can still pick up parts of the conversation. Not enough to understand the words, but he can hear the intonation and rise and fall of the ghoul’s cadence. Cirice drops his hands slightly to cover his mouth, then lets them fall clasped to the book he was copying from. He gives himself a moment to stare off into space before getting back to the symbol he was in the middle of trying to break down. 

Always secretive, the clergy artists found ways to shove meaning into every little space they possibly could by way of overlapping symbols or developing complex forms of shorthand for an already frustrating written language. Unfortunately with all the secrecy (and occasional forced removal from certain countries), integral texts that would have served as somewhat of a rosetta stone were lost, leaving modern analysts more or less in the dark. 

It took him a bit to figure it out when he first attempted deciphering the ornate symbols, curled over his lap on the loveseat in Papa’s office and so sure that it was a useless endeavor, until the man came to look at his progress and asked him, “Doesn’t this structure in the center remind you of the sigils in the ritual texts?” His voice was completely flat and casual, as if it were the simplest conclusion in the world and Cirice thinks that Papa’s composure is something that he would never achieve in this life, or any other.

Despite the chill in the air, his skin feels overheated. A cold sweat makes his clothes and hair stick unpleasantly to his skin and the ghoul’s unabating enthusiasm for his own conversation brings Cirice to the present. Distantly, he thinks that removing the ability to even understand what was being said made it all the more aggravating, overlapping and distorted thoughts blaring in a hostile loop. 

His heart pounds against the inside of his ribcage and blood roars in his ears, something animal shrieking for him to shriek back, to shove and scratch and kick and snap his teeth around bone until it shattered in his mouth like glass. Involuntarily, his jaw clenches and the metal eraser holder is pinned flat in his molars. The angle catches the inside of his lip and side of his tongue and any heat brought on by anger and frustration is quickly replaced by shame. The corners of his eyes prickle and burn.

The doctor and her pamphlets all told him that sometimes his thoughts and responses would get a little out of character. That they were an unfortunate byproduct of an unfortunate situation, and had no bearing on how good of a person one was just by having them. He knew that, just like he knew that trying to force them out and stomp them down would only cause even more undue stress and ultimately make it worse, but Cirice didn't have nearly enough energy or mental fortitude in him to think clinically anymore. Shuddering, Cirice hastily packs everything away. Notes are folded and crammed into books, his sketchbook left open with the most recent page facing out, all shoved unceremoniously into his bag along with scrap papers and crumpled sticky note bookmarkers. 

He keeps his head down, movements halting and unsteady, circling a wide berth around the group until he reaches the cobblestone walkway. Clutching the strap of his bag like a lifeline, he runs away to his apartment the second he was out of eyeshot.

Pressed up against his front door, Cirice’s legs give out and he collapses in the entryway. He’s left panting until the chills stop, kneeled on the hardwood with his arms wrapped around his middle, forehead pressed to the floor. At some point, his arms unwrap and snake up to clasp his hands on the back of his head. A mockery of a prayer position, sheltering in place from an atomic bomb. 

He doesn't know how long he stays there, but he waits until the tremors and nausea at his own thoughts abate before standing on shaky legs. A sharp stinging on his gums and the inside of his lip brings the world into sharper focus, followed by the slow recognition of the taste of metal. 

Damp chunks of eraser and a flattened piece of metal are spit onto his open palm.

_ Gross. _

  
  
  


Flicking the TV on, Cirice sits on his couch with a glass of water. Distraction was supposed to help, but usually he couldn’t get his brain to switch gears long enough to feel any better. Now all he’s left with is a hollow feeling where his head should be, thoughts playing in a jumbled loop, overlapping on each other, muted as if from a stereo in the other room. He hugs a throw pillow to his chest and brings his legs up, curling in on himself in the corner of the couch. The duration of whatever movie he put on is spent staring blankly at a spot on the carpet, all the while feeling a tightness in his chest. Every so often, he has to remind himself to exhale fully before inhaling again. When he flexes his hands, pointed nails pop through the fabric of the pillow. The sound startles him and he glances around the now darkened sitting room. From the window, he can barely see a sliver of the moon peeking up over the rooftop of the adjacent apartment block; sharp and cold and very, very far away.

Come morning, after waking up with a pounding headache and a general sense of unease that weren’t cured by over the counter ibuprofen, sludgy black coffee and a hot shower, Cirice muses that he could probably get away with calling out for a day or two. With the amount of notes and books he’d been lugging around and decorating every surface of his apartment with, it shouldn’t be a problem to get at least  _ something  _ done so that he wouldn’t feel completely guilty. 

After an eternity of steeling himself to tap in Papa’s office number and listening to the other line ringing, the man finally picks up with a gruff, clipped greeting. Cirice in turn fumbles his way through a long winded apology and excuse as to why he won’t be able to work for the next few days. The wait for Papa’s approval is even longer than the wait for him to pick up his phone.

“Fine, fine,” the man finally mutters, voice tinged with what Cirice has come to recognize as irritation. 

He runs his tongue along the scrape on his gumline. 

“Thank you. I know it’s probably inconvenient.”

Cirice bites his lips to stop himself from tacking on an even longer unneeded explanation or another useless  _ “um” _ at the end. Even though Papa can’t see him, Cirice still flushes with embarrassment as he drags his sweaty palms one at a time over the fabric of his sweatpants. Even the briefest of silences eats at him. Any urge to elaborate is cut short by Papa’s voice. 

“Take the time you need. You sound unwell,” Papa says. There’s a creak and a noise low in his throat and Cirice can picture the way he leans back in his chair to stretch out the ache in his back and shoulders. “I will be available through this number. If I don’t pick up, try again later.”

The line disconnects without much fanfare, leaving Cirice in a silent apartment, save for the beeping of his phone. With that, he slips his phone into his pocket and goes back to bed.

At some point he got up and ate something, probably. And he tried to fight his way through the first few paragraphs of several books, and watched some television and then cooked what he saw on the cooking channel (to varying success), and then attempted to draw something, just for himself (also to varying success). He even busted out his old paints, which thankfully had not coagulated in their jars with age, only to lose steam and become too antsy to make much of anything after priming and throwing a base layer onto his canvas. 

The guilt of unproductivity gnaws at the back of his mind with every passing hour. Despite the syrupy haze of the day and inability to shake his mood, it all passes far too fast for his liking. Soon his apartment is flooded with the dull orange of the evening sky. Cirice allows himself another long stretch of time to stare out the kitchen window from his seat on the counter, looking out at the various ant-sized Siblings and ghouls traversing through the abbey and finding their own ways home. Once the sky goes dark, he hops off and makes his way to the bathroom, brushes his teeth and stares through the other guy in the mirror. For lack of anything better to do, he flicks off the bathroom light and crawls into bed, feeling both like he just woke up and hasn’t slept in a year. 

“In the morning I’ll feel better,” he mumbles to himself. It offers little reassurance.

He lies there staring at the ceiling until all its cracks and divots are memorized. 

And then for a little while longer. 

And then here he is nearly a week later, still in a terrible mood, having gotten nothing more than a few doodles in the borders of his notes finished, and with a distinct pain in his ass from doing so much sitting around and watching daytime talk shows. After the second day of feeling guilty and shameful and doing absolutely fuck all, he finally took the time to write out all of the things he needed to do and set alarms on his phone for the important ones. Even the most basic of tasks like eating and drinking got a dedicated reminder with the most grating alarm. His work notes were always out and readily available should he be hit with a realization or even a spark of creativity while in the shower or sweeping the floors, scribbling on them throughout his newly enforced routine as needed. 

Sitting cross legged on his couch with the sketchbook on his lap during some downtime, he slowly makes the dawning realization that he’s hit somewhat of a deadend without somebody to bounce concepts and ideas off of. A dull throb is beginning to make itself known behind his left eye and temple. 

While Papa had made it clear that he had no intention or means to undertake the entire research project himself, his insight and occasional remarks were invaluable. Cirice leans heavily on his palm, drawing idly while mulling some theories over in his head, only to turn away and bury his face in his hand when he notices the sketch (or two,  _ or several _ ) of Papa that somehow found its way onto his paper.

_ Damn it. No!  _

He draws a snaking line over the most recent sketch, uncommitted to crossing it out fully. Cirice pins the nail of his index finger between his front teeth. That's the kind of frustration he  _ doesn't need _ while he's having a personal crisis in slow motion, bouncing back and forth between trying to accept his new condition and freaking the fuck out about it like it was a game of Pong. 

Papa said that he was available if Cirice was having problems... But that only applied to work related ones, right? Or maybe not. Wasn’t it a duty of the Papas to offer some sort of council to their acolytes? 

He groans and presses his hands against his face. 

Slowly, Cirice scrolls through his contact list, thumb hovering over the call button. 

Before he can back out, he squeezes his eyes shut and slams his thumb down, keeping them shut for the first seven rings. 

At the ninth, he cracks one eye open. 

At the twelfth, he drops his shoulders from where they were hunched up near his ears and his face relaxes from a look of pain and hesitation to one of confusion. 

It isn’t like he expected the guy to pick up on the first ring but damn, this is giving him a little too much time to doubt his decisions and subsequent actions. Is Papa the type of guy to screen his calls? There’s no way. Cirice heard his fair share of “fuck you, man”s and “don’t call this number again”s in the short span of time he spent sitting in Papa’s office. Even with so many people bothering him, he still picked up every time or at least called back when he was otherwise occupied. Cirice nearly drops his phone when he hears the click on the other end. But there’s no greeting, not even a gruff “ _ what do you want” _ . Only a cold and robotic female-ish voice. 

_ “You’ve reached the voicemail system. Please leave your name and message at the tone.”  _

He doesn’t even have a custom greeting. Any disappointment is quickly shoved down, like stomping on an overfull trashcan. His shoulders slump at the sound of the high pitched beep and he folds in on himself, resting his head on his knees. What is he  _ doing? _ What does he even say? He really should have thought about this some more. 

“Ummm.” 

Cirice winces. Great start! 

“Okay. Uh. Hi. It’s me. Which you can probably see, from the notification. Or not, if you didn’t save my number. In which case, that’s okay too and also hi, it’s me. I think I need some help with something. I definitely need help with something. It’s hard to explain. So, if you could get back to me, I’d appreciate that. Okay. Thanks.” 

He’s silent for a second, unsure if the recording will stop on its own or if he has to press something. He jumps again at the voice on the other end.

_ “Message received.”  _

Cirice sits there staring at his phone, at the bright green “Emeritus II” listed in his outgoing calls through the dead pixels and technicolor artifacting until the fried screen goes dim automatically. With a frustrated groan, he falls sideways to lay facedown on the couch and shift his gaze between the TV and his phone on the table for the next hour.

  
  


Cirice is rudely awoken by an incessant pounding at the door mirroring the one in his skull. This running theme is getting a little old. He hauls himself up off the couch and makes his way to the door, not bothering to check who it is before opening up. He leans out the door with a sour look, poised to give whoever it was a stern talking to. Where he was expecting a busybody neighbor or one of the local children, he instead comes face to face with an intricately embroidered white grucifix. He wishes he had checked. Maybe it would have given him more time to prepare for the sight of Papa Emeritus the Second standing in his hallway. Without straightening up, he glances up at the man. 

“...Hi?” 

“Hello.”

Papa stares at him before splaying his hands out the way that he does, as if to say  _ “what?” _ , and cocking his head.

“You had something you needed to discuss?” 

Cirice’s brain finally catches up and he stands up fully straight, but not before staring in shock with his mouth slightly open for a good few seconds. 

“Yes. Sure, yeah, come in.” 

Backing away from the door, a cold pit forms in his stomach when Papa breezes right through the entrance of his apartment and gives the entirety of it a once over, taking in the scattered papers, the book he’d tried to read days ago still lying open with its spine facing up, paint stains on the kitchen table, dried mud tracked in and leading straight to Cirice’s work shoes sitting in the hallway. 

“Sorry, I wasn't really expecting... It’s normally cleaner than this!” Cirice rushes, trying his best to discreetly straighten up without seeming entirely humiliated. 

A misplaced bottle of paint finds its way under Cirice’s heel and he staggers. Without thinking about it, Papa puts an arm out so that Cirice doesn’t fall on his ass and freezes in place, standing stock-still when he’s caught around the elbow, firm even in the split second where he’s supporting Cirice’s entire weight. An immovable object, a stone monument. If he were in a better position, Cirice might say that Papa’s tense expression and rigid posture made him seem awkward and uncomfortable. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t. What comes out instead is,

“Okay, it’s not normally cleaner than this.” 

Papa furrows his brow. 

“The state of your apartment is none of my concern.” He pauses, scratching at his cheek with a gloved finger. Cirice’s eyes immediately hone in on where his paint smears. “Ehh, so long as you do not burn it down or anything. Now. My arm?” 

Cirice looks down. He’s still got his hand wrapped around Papa’s elbow. He retracts his hand as quickly as if he were touching a hot stovetop, or perhaps under the threat of frostbite from Papa’s perpetual icy demeanor. 

“Sorry about that.” 

Not knowing what else to do, Cirice heads to the kitchen table to at least straighten his things into a semi-orderly pile and shoves them to one side. Footsteps on hardwood approach until they’re  _ far  _ too near and when Cirice turns, he almost bumps into Papa. He holds up a stapled packet of papers that Cirice hadn’t noticed before and places it in the now vacant center of the kitchen table. Cirice’s hands curl and uncurl at his sides, nails pressing into the skin of his palms each time.

“Is it warm in here? Or are you ill? You look like you are starting to sweat,” Papa says.

Cirice just gives him a closed smile.

“I’m just fine, thank you. Would you like a drink, Papa?” 

He turns away and heads further into the kitchen, straight to the pantry. Without waiting for a response, he rummages through all of their options.

“I have tea. Or coffee. Or soda. Lots of soda... but mostly there’s tea.”

He looks over his shoulder expectantly. The look Papa gives him in return is near unreadable. Tight lipped, not necessarily a smile but also not hostile or displeased.

“Tea is fine,” he says.

His left eyebrow cocks slightly when he says “fine” through his teeth. Why is he so stiff? He isn’t nearly this awkward proselytizing in front of all those people every day. Cirice waits until he’s safely turned away rummaging through the cabinet for the box of tea bags he got on his last trip to town to let his emotions show fully on his face. What he was hoping was a somewhat pleasant, neutral expression drops into a panicked grimace, all the while silently thanking whatever deity is in charge that he remembered to properly wash out the kettle from last time.

The entire time he’s setting the water to boil and picking out two unchipped and sort of matching mugs, Papa does not speak. Instead he seems to float around the small apartment, taking a look at the various half finished creative endeavors that litter every available surface. Once he fights the overwhelming urge to usher Papa away, Cirice calms quickly, standing up a little straighter when Papa leans in to examine an unfinished painting on the wall and nods to himself. Breathing comes to him a little easier and he gets to staring at Papa while Papa gets to staring at everything else. He looks a lot less angry when he isn’t working or under public scrutiny.  _ Go figure. _

Cirice nearly jumps out of his skin when he’s spoken to, thankful that Papa still had his attention turned elsewhere.

“There is a nice use of shape here,” he says, using his little finger to trace the outline of a shape from a few inches away from the canvas. 

The one he’s gesturing to had been abandoned quite quickly once Cirice realized that he probably shouldn’t have used charcoal for an undersketch of what was  _ supposed  _ to be a light colored painting. It just kept bleeding through to the surface no matter how thickly the acrylic was applied. Quickly shifting his gaze from the man’s profile and down to the kettle on the stove, Cirice taps his nails on the countertop.

“Oh no, I think that’s... that’s a little too kind for how it’s looking right now.”

Papa drops his hand and clasps them behind his back.

“No, it is nice.” And then, turning to look at Cirice, he says, “I can be more critical of it later, if you would like. When you finish it.”

The suggestion that he  _ ought to _ finish it makes him huff a sort-of-laugh.

“Would you?”

“I will eviscerate it, do not worry.”

Cirice only breaks away from the eye contact when the kettle begins whistling, biting his lips against a smile and busying himself with pouring the hot water over the tea bags so as not to think about the fact that Papa Emeritus the Second is currently walking over and seating himself at his rickety little two person coffee table. 

_ It’s fine, _ he tells himself.  _ It’s for work, and people always meet their bosses to discuss work. _

But they don’t meet their bosses alone at their apartment. 

Cirice starts chewing on the inside of his cheek. He brings the mugs over to the table and sits opposite of Papa, leaning back in his chair and crossing an ankle over his knee to maintain his casual, distant demeanor. It’s a business meeting, nothing more, and he is going to handle this  _ professionally _ .

He has to hold back a laugh when Papa brings the mug to his lips and winces at the taste, unable to rein in his facial expression in time. Instead, Cirice hides his mouth behind his own mug, looking up and away politely so that Papa can be disgusted in peace. The tea isn’t anything too strange or out there; one ingredient, common mugwort, steeped to a dark and murky swamp green. Where normally Cirice reveled in the reaction he could pull out of anyone not expecting the exceedingly bitter medicinal flavor, he feels nothing that he can put a name to. Pity, perhaps, but that seems a little too severe for bitter tea. 

“It’s okay if you don’t like it, you don’t have to finish it. I won’t be, like, offended or anything,”

Cirice says directly into his mug before taking a mouthful. 

Papa seems bemused by the comment. As if a Papa would ever have to go out of his way to spare the feelings of the very clergy that exists to serve him. Absurd. 

“No, just surprising is all.”

Papa fiddles with the little square tag at the end of the string with his thumb and forefinger. Folds the corners in toward the center, then again in the opposite direction. Flips the tag over and rubs his thumb over it a few times, downcast eyes trained on the logo. Ornate golden laurels surround the company name in the center, stamped onto dark green, almost black cardstock. 

He takes a deep breath through his nose and sighs. 

“Now.” He taps his finger on the stack of papers he brought with him, set in the center of the table. Cirice finishes off his tea, leaning back in his chair to upend the mug before leafing through the papers.

“What’re these, again?” 

“Information. For you, for the artwork.” Cirice nods. “A deacon from  Ardeaglais Rout , he faxed them to the offices.” 

Already making note of some relevant information and piecing it together in his head, Cirice snorts and asks, “You guys really still use fax machines?” 

Remembering who exactly he’s talking to gives him a cold chill and he looks up over the papers, hoping and praying that his remark didn’t come off as rude or ungrateful. Papa scoffs, amused.

“My elder brother, he is, ah... very set in his ways,” he says fondly, looking down at his folded hands on the tabletop.

Cirice has never been more relieved to hear about a technologically unadvanced old man in his life. 

Idly, Papa scratches at a splotch of dried blue paint on the edge of the table. It comes off in little flakes and what doesn’t drift to the floor sticks to the leather of his glove. 

“You didn’t have to actually come over, you know. I was sort of expecting you to call me back and tell me to come in.” 

Papa rubs his fingers together in an attempt to rid them of the paint flakes. 

“You sounded nervous in your message. Truthfully, well... it made  _ me  _ nervous.” 

Folding slightly in on himself, Cirice bites the inside of his cheek and squeezes both of his hands together between his knees. Papa leans in heavily on his elbows. 

“Now, what was it that you wanted to discuss, really?” 

The lean didn’t exactly encroach on his personal space or anything, even though the man being in his apartment at all might have counted in some way, but he got the creeping feeling that Papa simply couldn’t  _ help  _ the heavy intimidating presence he gave off. Maybe it was the regalia and skull paint. Maybe it was just him. Sitting around and staring isn’t going to break down that aura any time soon. 

“Sometimes, I get these thoughts in my head,” he starts, murky eyes wide and owlish. 

“What sort of thoughts?” 

Whether it’s from nerves or something else entirely, Cirice can’t tell, buta lopsided smile breaks out across his face.

“Weird ones.” 

Papa’s gaze drifts away from Cirice’s face and up to the little horns peeking out from his hair. 

“I see.” 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my favorite tea irl has always been the mugwort tea from a local spice shop ever since I was a kid. a friend recently called me out for being too predictable in that I’m “always going after bitter”.


End file.
